Narratives and neurons: stories of damaged brains.

Stories register in human memory in special ways, and stories about neurological cases can entertain and move a reader while simultaneously being an important part of any neuroscience curriculum. Here we describe a course taught in the context of the liberal arts curriculum of Baldwin-Wallace College. Students from a variety of disciplines learned basic neuroanatomy, neurophysiology and neurochemistry and then used this information to help them understand published neurological case studies, which were analyzed for their literary as well as scientific qualities.