Development of an open-access, web-based interactive tool to learn autonomic nervous system physiology and pharmacology

摘要

Autonomic nervous system (ANS) physiology and pharmacology are essential components of a first-year medical student's education and serve as a gateway into understanding cardiovascular, pulmonary, and gastrointestinal physiology and pharmacology. Traditionally, ANS physiology and pharmacology at U.S. medical schools has been taught in didactic lectures with limited opportunity for application or interaction. Indeed, current methods for teaching this material often rely on static resources, such as primary physiology or pharmacology textbooks, or board review books that have tables or brief diagrams showing the ANS tracts. However, these resources typically do not provide the type of global view necessary to understand the interconnections between the different organ systems or how drugs altering one type of receptor can have effects in multiple organ systems. Nor do they afford students the opportunity to interact with the information in a way that drive understanding of receptor function. Thus, to successfully master the ANS, students need to develop a command of the types of ANS receptors, their location, and the consequences of their activation or inhibition. There have been numerous reports documented in the literature aimed at making learning the ANS more active. For example, cases studies that put the ANS and associated receptors in a clinical context help to increase student interactivity and foster discussion in ways that didactic lectures cannot (14). Previous studies have also reported development of computer programs that incorporate ANS physiology in the context of single-organ physiology (i.e., vasculature, cardiovascular) rather than focusing on how the ANS impacts all organ systems (10). Others, such as Jones et al. (4), have created "educational board games," in this case, to teach pharmacy students ANS pharmacology. Here we describe a free, platform-independent online tool we developed that helps students visualize the location of ANS receptors and