9.13 The Human Brain

Professor Information

Story about a medical situation of a person, Bob (fictional name), foreshadows course themes
Discussion of the why, how, and what of studying the human brain
Course mechanics, syllabus, grading, etc.

Setting: Bob stayed over at Nancy's house en route to a conference and had a medical emergency.
Incident: Bob collapsed and became unconscious; EMTs couldn't find anything wrong initially.
ER Visit: Taken to Mount Auburn Hospital; nothing was initially found.
Brain Concern: Kanwisher recalled Bob's history of getting lost and recommended checking his brain.
Discovery: MRI revealed a lime-sized tumor called a meningioma in Bob's brain.
Surgery: Successful due to expert neurosurgeon; but navigational abilities remained impaired.
Conclusion: Bob uses GPS for navigation; specific brain damage led to the loss of navigation skills.

Brain Structure: Different brain parts have specialized functions.
- Example: Navigation-specific areas and how their damage leads to specific deficits without affecting overall intelligence.
Brain Function Specificity: Some brain parts are highly specialized.
- Example: Areas for navigation vs areas for recognizing objects or drawing a bicycle.
Post-Damage Recovery: Children are more likely to recover from brain damage than adults.
- Example: Bob's inability to regain navigation skills post-surgery.
Methods of Study: Different methods reveal different facets about the brain.
- Examples: Behavioral observations, anatomical, and functional brain images.

Self-Knowledge: Understand the organ that makes us who we are.
Human Knowledge Limits: Evaluate our cognitive limits and potential of knowledge.
AI Advancement: Inform and improve artificial intelligence by understanding human cognition.
- Example: Deep Nets and their limitations compared to human cognition.
Great Intellectual Quest: Understanding the brain is one of the biggest intellectual challenges.

Levels of Organization: Molecules, neurons, circuits, brain regions, and networks.
Focus: Understanding how the brain gives rise to the mind by studying mental functions.
- Example: Visual perception, language understanding.
Methods: Psychophysics, perceptual illusions, neuropsychology, fMRI, EEG, etc.

Perception: color, shape, motion, faces, places, bodies, words.
Navigation and Scene Perception: Utilizing various research methods.
Development: How brain regions develop and specialize.
Specific Disorders: Studies of blind brains, understanding numbers, and the neuroeconomics of pleasure and pain.
Uniquely Human Functions: Speech, music appreciation, theory of mind, and high-level brain networks.

Current papers and research: Reading, understanding, and analyzing recent scientific literature.
Scientific Paper Reading Strategy:
- Identify research questions, findings, design, and interpretation.
- Focus on understanding core ideas, not technical minutiae.
Broader understanding of brain functions: Specific functions like navigation, recognizing scenes, and regions responsible for numbers, etc.

Focus on main ideas and key themes while reading scientific papers.
Understand the methods and what they can and cannot reveal about brain function.
Keep up with assigned readings and use quizzes as checkpoints for comprehension.