2 Saturdays, October 1 and October 8, 10:00am-3:00pm, Building 387 Room 103
Enrollment Code: 57547
Surprisingly, the discovery horizon lies within ourselves. Step by small step over the past ten years, the human brain, our last frontier, has begun to yield its secrets. With imaging techniques we can peer into the living human brain. As we watch its activation patterns flash by in a still unreadable code, not only is the brain telling us about itself, but like an introspective thinker, the view from inside ourselves can potentially reveal the most profound insights about being human. We can read brain genes, the instruction book, from which the brain is assembled beginning with the very first cells destined to become neurons. Remarkably, learning requires that certain brain genes begin to make new proteins, which change the very shapes of our neurons. In this way experience is laid down in a microscopic pattern of synaptic connections. No doubt this windfall of neuroscientific knowledge will have a powerful impact on many facets of society.
Professor Kenneth Kosik, MCDB, has taught courses on neurobiology, memory, and neurodegenerative disease.
