CHASING THE SECRETS OF THE BRAIN

Course Objectives:

The specific learning objectives of this course are familiarizing the students with the basic theoretical and empirical knowledge necessary to grasp how the brain and the rest of the nervous system works, the perspectives and methods used by different fields to study the brain, and how the knowledge gained from the brain can help us overcome major challenges. The overarching goal of the course is to look at mostly erroneous simplistic depictions of the brain in the popular media from a critical perspective and equip students with the multidisciplinary approach necessary to understand the complex secrets of the brain.

Course Content:

The brain is arguably the most complex object in the known universe. Various disciplines bring their unique approaches and techniques together to understand it’s secrets and utilize them to solve the greatest problems of our time. In this course, we will investigate these efforts, not only to learn about them, but also to internalize the potential ways in which we can contribute them. The semester will start with a critical discussion of the commonly-held, but mostly wrong, beliefs about the brain. Then, major theoretical and empirical advances in the history of brain science will be covered to lay a common foundation on which the multidisciplinary approach can be built. In the rest of the semester, the brain will be examined from the lens of different disciplines, such as evolutionary biology, molecular biology and genetics, psychology, medicine, mathematics, and engineering. Each discipline’s unique contribution to understanding the brain, as well as the practical implications of knowledge of the brain for that field will be discussed in detail.