How I'm Mastering Neuroscience Using Ultra-learning

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Neuroscience has been my passion since my first year studying for my bachelor's in psychology.

However, taking the neuroscience course was not enough for me.

I needed more knowledge.

I wanted to REALLY understand how the brain works.

And that's when I started using ultra-learning.

🦜 Follow me to learn more about Neuroscience: Axel

Ultra … What?

Ultralearning: to learn about a topic intensively and self-directed.

Using this strategy, you can set a plan to study an entire degree for free and in just a year instead of 4, for example.

This is exactly what Scott Young did in his first ultra-learning project: study a bachelor's in computer science from MIT using its free resources.

When I was an undergraduate student in Psychology, I became fascinated about research in Neuroscience.

However, if I wanted to become a neuroscientist I would need a strong knowledge of how the brain works.

That's why I started using ultra-learning to master it.

At the end of this article you will find the full list of ultra-learning principles I wrote a few weeks ago :)

My Strategy To Master Neuroscience

So the first thing when starting your ultra learning project is to know what resources you need.

In my case, I needed to look up for lectures and books.

And I found some great resources!

Here are a list of some of them:

• Book: Principles of Neural Science by Kandel et al. (the bible of Neuroscience)
• Book: Physiology of Behavior by Carlson
• Online Course: Medical Neuroscience Course by Duke University in Coursera
• Online Course: Neuroscience Course by Stanford University
• Online Course: Introduction to the Human Brain by MIT

As I already took a neuroscience course at my university, I didn't have to start with the basics.

So my primary resource was the "Principles of Neural Science" book.

My strategy was to create tiny habits for study sessions to digest this MASSIVE book (around 1800 pages).

Change Your Mindset: Don't Look At The Big Picture But To The Details

This book has 73 chapters (including extra ones) and is pretty long and dense to read.

But instead of thinking "Damn, this is way too long and impossible to reach" you can focus on one chapter only.

Tiny habits, small study sessions.

Study smarter, not harder.

For example, you can set your goal to study one chapter per day (which is a lot though, and may lead to burnout, so I don't recommend it).

With this approach, you will finish studying this book in 2 months and a half, a summer holiday!

But hey! Neuroscience is hard and reading will not be enough to master it.

So perhaps a better approach is to study 1 or 2 chapters per week.

A year has around 52 weeks, so with this strategy, you will master this neuroscience book in a year and a half.

This may sound like a lot of time and it is.

But we are talking about the bible of Neuroscience.

Not even PhD students learn the full book!

So to master it in just a year and a half is absolutely insane.

Of course, here we are considering that you have a life with many responsibilities.

So this approach is more realistic with our common lives.

You see? Tiny habits that become a huge thing!

This is how I'm mastering Neuroscience.

So if you want to apply this ultra-learning strategy, below are some useful principles.

Ultralearning Principles

Note: I made a series of articles with each principle that Scott Young proposed in his book Ultralearning:

• Principle N1: Meta-Learning
• Principle N2: Focus
• Principle N3: Directness
• Principle N4: Drill
• Principle N5: Retrieval
• Principle N6: Feedback
• Principle N7: Retention
• Principle N8: Intuition
• Principle N9: Experimentation

This is an example of how I use ultra-learning in my daily life to master any topic.

Here I talked about Neuroscience, but you can apply it to any topic you want, such as learning a new language or playing an instrument.

Remember, don't look at the big picture. Try to decompose it into smaller sessions.

Tiny habits and consistency will get you there.

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See you,

Axel