Neurological Examination Rehearsal Virtual Environment (NERVE)

The Neurological Examination Rehearsal Virtual Environment (NERVE) is a suite of tools designed to give first- and second-year medical students standardized experience in interviewing, examining and diagnosing patients with cranial nerve disorders. There is no cost to use the system for educational purposes. Given interactions with NERVE virtual patients, students provide reasonable differential diagnoses for unknown disorders by: 

• Recognizing the anatomy and physiology of cranial nerves; 
• Recognizing the pathology and symptoms of cranial nerve dysfunctions; 
• Distinguishing cranial nerve dysfunctions; 
• Performing appropriate physical exams or formulating organized interview questions; 
• Identifying damaged cranial nerves; and 
• Formulating hypotheses about the cause of identified cranial nerve palsies. 

To achieve the objectives, students can: 

• Use the Learning Center to learn about all 12 cranial nerves. For each cranial nerve, students can access interactive tools that show presentations with a virtual patient, read about anatomy & physiology information, read about symptoms & pathology information, follow links to case studies on PubMed, and a take quiz (with immediate feedback). 
• Practice interactions with six virtual patients. Each virtual patient interaction takes about 20-30 minutes. Students are automatically sent feedback upon completion of every virtual patient interaction. If you would like a unique Qualtrics page set up for your course so you can receive individual student data.