The Human Brain: Lecture Notes 🧠

Introduction

• Course Number: 9.13
• Course Name: The Human Brain
• Instructor: Prof. Nancy Kanwisher
• Agenda: Story, why/how/what of studying the brain, course mechanics

Story: Medical Incident of a Friend

• Told for thematic purposes, not for test material
• True Story: A friend (Bob) collapsed at the professor's house
• Key Highlights:
  • Bob had trouble with navigation for years
  • Worrisome symptoms like getting lost
  • MRI revealed a lime-sized meningioma in the brain
  • Tumor near the para-hippocampal place area and retrosplenial cortex
  • Expertise and medical privilege crucial for Bob's successful surgery
  • Post-surgery: Navigational abilities did not recover; uses GPS
  • Tells a lot about brain's specialization and plasticity

Themes from the Story

• Brain Structure: Different parts of the brain have specific functions
• Specificity: Some brain parts are very specific in their function
• Brain & Mind: Studying brain helps understand the architecture of the mind
• Injury & Recovery: Brain damage often does not lead to recovery of lost functions
• Methods of Study: Behavioral observations, anatomical brain images, functional images

Why Study the Brain?

• Know Thyself: Understand the organ that essentially defines who you are
• Limits of Human Knowledge: Understand cognitive limits and potentials
• Advance AI: Learning from human brain to improve artificial intelligence
  • Deep Nets have revolutionized AI
  • AI still lacking in generalized understanding and higher-order image recognition
• Greatest Intellectual Quest: Understanding the brain represents the height of scientific achievement

How to Study the Brain?

Levels of Organization

• Molecules & Neurons: Basic building blocks and their interactions
• Circuits to Networks: How large-scale networks interact and function

Cognitive Science Methods

• Psychophysics and Illusions: Basic yet powerful tools to understand perception
• Functional MRI: Mapping real-time brain activity to cognitive functions
• Neurophysiology: Studying the function of individual neurons and networks
• EEG/MEG: Non-invasive methods to study brain electromagnetic activity

What Will We Study?

• What to Cover:
  • Visual perception: motion, color, shape, faces, scenes, bodies, words
  • Perceiving and navigating places
  • Understanding numbers
  • Language perception and production
  • Music cognition
  • Social cognition and theory of mind
• What Not to Cover:
  • Motor control
  • Subcortical functions
  • Decision making
  • Circuit-level mechanisms for complex cognition

Goals of the Course

• Big Questions: Explore the fundamental theoretical questions in cognitive neuroscience
• Methods: Understand and be able to critique different research methods in the field
• Knowledge: Gain insights into specific domains like vision, navigation, and language
• Reading Proficiency: Develop the ability to read and understand contemporary scientific papers

Course Mechanics

• No Textbook: Field evolving too fast; focus on current articles
• Grading:
  • Midterm: 25%
  • Final: 25%
  • Reading and Writing Assignments: Regular, based on current papers
  • Quizzes: Eight short in-class quizzes, starting Feb 20th
  • One long written assignment: Designing an experiment, due near the end
• Lecture Plan: Series of topics from neuroanatomy to high-level cognitive functions
• Special Sessions: Brain dissection by Ann Graybiel, guest lectures on AI and brain-machine interfaces

How to Read Scientific Papers

• Questions to Ask:
  • What question is being asked?
  • What are the findings?
  • What is the interpretation?
  • What is the experimental design?
  • How were the data analyzed?
• Sections to Focus On: Title, abstract, methods (to identify what was done), results, and interpretation
• Ignore: Heavy technical details like specific MRI scanner types

Final Remarks

• Feedback: Continuous improvement based on student feedback
• Engagement: Emphasis on understanding and critical thinking over memorization

Upcoming Class

• Detailed neuroanatomy overview in preparation for brain dissection demonstration.