WEEK ONE
Lecture 1: Introduction
Prof. Kanwisher tells a true story to introduce the course. The why, how, and what of studying the human brain. Course overview.
WEEK TWO
Lecture 2: Neuroanatomy
Basic brief neuroanatomy review in preperation for dissection on Wednesday. Introduction to the cortex. Primary regions, topographic maps–what counts as a cortical area? Visual motion area MT as an example.
Lecture 3: Master Class: Human Brain Dissection with Guest Lecturer Ann Graybiel (video not recorded)
Assignment 1 due
WEEK THREE
Lecture 4: Cognitive Neuroscience Methods I
What would an understanding of the brain, and how it implements the mind, look like? Marr’s levels of analysis applied to color vision. Introduction to methods in cognitive neuroscience including computation, behavior, fMRI, ERPs & MEG, neuropsychology patients, TMS, and intracranial recordings in humans and nonhuman primates. Methods illustrated with visual perception of color, motion, shape, and faces. In-class color demo.
Lecture 5: Cognitive Neuroscience Methods II
Methods in cognitive neuroscience continued.
Assignment 2 due
Quiz at end of class
WEEK FOUR
Lecture 6: Experimental Design
Class breaks into groups to work out details of experiments proposed in assignment.
Assignment 3 Due
Lecture 7: Category Selectivity, Controversies, and Multiple Voxel Pattern Analysis (MVPA)
Controversies and alternative views of the ventral visual pathway. Multiple voxel pattern analysis. The two visual pathways and what is represented in each.
Quiz at end of class
WEEK FIVE
How do you know where you are, or how to get from here to there? Cognitive neuroscience has revealed the functional organization of scene perception and navigation and the various brain structures that implement them.
Lecture 8: Navigation I
Assignment 4 due
Lecture 9: Navigation II
Quiz at end of class
WEEK SIX
How does the intricate organization of the cortex get wired up in the brain over infancy and childhood? What are the roles of genes and experience? Can cortical organization change in adulthood? Recent work in developmental cognitive neuroscience has started to answer some of these fundamental questions.
Lecture 10: Development, Nature & Nurture I
Assignment 5 due
Lecture 11: Development, Nature & Nurture II (class canceled; students watched lecture from 2018)
Quiz at end of class
WEEK SEVEN
Lecture 12: Brain-Machine Interface with Guest Lecturer Michael Cohen
Assignment 6 due
MIDTERM
WEEK EIGHT
Lecture 13: Number
Even infants, spiders, and frogs can count. What is the nature of the human representation of number, and how is it implemented in the brain?
Assignment 7 due
Lecture 14: New Methods Applied to Number (video not recorded)
Review and student breakout groups.
The mental abilities listed in the lectures above are shared with animals whereas those in the lectures below are mostly not.
WEEK NINE
Lecture 15: Hearing and Speech
Humans use hearing in species-specific ways, for speech and music. Ongoing research is just now working out the functional organization of these and other human auditory skills.
Assignment 8 due
Lecture 16: Music
Quiz at end of class
WEEK TEN
Lecture 17: MEG Decoding and RSA (video not recorded)
WEEK ELEVEN
Lecture 18: Language I
Language is our signature human cognitive skill. Cognitive neuroscience has only recently started to understand its basic organization in the brain and to answer the long-standing question of the relationship between thought and language.
Quiz at end of class
Lecture 19: Language II (class canceled, video not recorded)
WEEK TWELVE
Lecture 20: Mentalizing and Theory of Mind
From an early age, humans spend much of their time thinking about what other people are thinking. Astonishingly, this ability is implemented in brain regions highly specialized for this function alone. What exactly is represented here?
Quiz at end of class
Lecture 21: Brain Networks
Quiz at end of class
Experimental Design Project due
Design an experiment using any of the methods of human cognitive neuroscience to address the brain basis of intuitive physics.
WEEK THIRTEEN
Lecture 22: Experimental Design (video not recorded)
Class breaks into groups to discuss and share details about their experiment proposals.
Lecture 23: Deep Networks (updated 2021 video)
Deep learning and human cognition.
WEEK FOURTEEN
Lecture 24: Attention and Awareness
What is the difference in the mind and brain between perceptual information we are aware of versus information we are not? How much information is processed when we are asleep? Anesthetized? In a coma?
Quiz at end of class
Lecture 25: Recap of Course and Final Review (video not recorded)
FINAL
Final takes place during exam week.