These are very unique times for brain research. The aperitif for the course will thus highlight the present “brain-excitements” worldwide. You will then become intimately acquainted with the operational principles of neuronal “life-ware” (synapses, neurons and the networks that they form) and consequently, on how neurons behave as computational microchips and how they plastically and constantly change - a process that underlies learning and memory. Recent heroic attempts to realistically simulate large cortical networks in the computer will be highlighted (e.g., “the Blue Brain Project”) and processes related to perception, cognition and emotions in the brain will be discussed. For dessert we will deliberate on the future of brain research, including the questions of “brain and art”, consciousness and free will. For more information see the course promo below and read “About the course.”
Farewell Words
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Do curso por Hebrew University of Jerusalem
Sinapses, Neurônios e Cérebros
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Course Conclusion
Within a short period of time you have mastered a great deal of material and we very much hope that you have enjoyed this experience of learning about the brain by using its unique plastic capabilities.
We want to thank you for your active participation, for enabling us to improve during the course and for the many compliments which we received from many of you.
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Idan SegevProfessor
Computational Neuroscience
So we came to final moments of this course,
this nine lesson course, short but intense, so
I want to say a few summary and farewell words to all of us.
I really feel that we are in a very unique times, for the brain.
I started by saying that society realized that it's really high time and
essential for society to understand the brain in a new, in a deeper way,
in some sense, really, to save society from becoming aged and sick.
And also, because we don't understand our brain, our capabilities,
our aggressions, we don't understand it, we need to find new solutions.
The next decade, which is the decade of the brain,
because of the Human Brain Project, which is the decade of the brain, because of
Obama's BRAIN project, all these promise that we
are going into absolutely new dimensions in brain research, that's clear.
For me, of course, as a new scientist, it's a dream.
It's a dream to be living, and to be acting, and
to be able to tell you about these particular unique times.
It's not always the case that this times come, but now, it's an exciting times.
That's beautiful, and again, emphasizing the need for theory.
This is then missing, big missing link in neuroscience and
overreaching large scale theory explaining how brain
ingredients, synapses, neurons, dendrites,
axons, spikes, PSPs give rise to behavior.
I want to emphasize again, because now that you know how plastic is the brain,
and so the world is changing because of our plasticity.
We are the only animal that is dramatically changing the world so fast.
We build machines, we write poetry, we do movies,
and all that is due to our plastic brain.
Still people
feel about the others, especially that it's rigid.
We tend to use the word, this good,
and this is bad, and we use it in a more strict way as if this is deterministic.
This is good, and this is bad.
This is right, and this is wrong.
He is like this.
She is like this.
This is exactly against the brain.
The whole notion of plasticity is the fact that he or me or
she is now this thing, and tomorrow, another thing.
So he is not bad, she is not good.
It's a dynamical system that is changing due to the interaction between my brain,
you, part of the environment.
This is something very important, because as I said,
most of us really feel that what it is.
Yes, maybe there is a physical system outside.
Probably, there are trees and so on, yes.
But we are dynamical entities,
our brain of humans is changing, so all these wars, and
all these antagonisms ,and all these certainties that this is the only way,
should be taken with a grain of salt, because we can change.
We can change the brain from the outside, we can change the brain through
interaction, through such courses and so on.
For example, something that for me is important, we decided that science and
art is something different, will always be something different.
Scientists and artists are different.
You are a scientist, so you are a scientist.
You're an artist, you're an artist.
Leonardo Da Vinci did not know, his brain did not know about these distinctions.
And so I would like you to experience, and you experience in anew
volume that is not just being edited, you can go into the internet and look at it.
Look at Art and Brain in the series
of journals that I will say a word about in a second, Frontiers in Neuroscience.
So if you look at Frontiers in Neuroscience, Art and Brain,
you'll see a set of papers, some of them from neuroscientists, about movies,
art, brain and movies, about visual art, about sculptures, about dance,
all the arts, auditory system, music, but you will also get papers from artists.
Speaking about how they,
artists, see their own creativity, think about their own brain.
So I'm trying to break these borders, these classical borders
that are sometimes useful as categories but sometimes are harmful.
So I would like you to look at this, if possible, whenever you have time.
And I want to say one word about this another huge change in the world that you
are now part of it, myself too, is this MOOC phenomenon,
the Massive Open Online Courses.
Thousand and hundreds of thousand people including this course,
you may know know that about 40,000 people registered,
about 20,000 or so started physically to take the course.
We have a very high successful rate of people remaining throughout,
about 5,000 or so.
This is a big success, and a big compliment for me, from you, so
this is fantastic.
But this is a phenomena, this Coursera, in similar courses that enables
professionals within their fields to enable people all over the world,
from anywhere, to just look at the course and learn in a deeper sense.
This is absolutely beautiful, this is the invention of our brain; the digital world.
Part of this concept, which is expressed very strongly in Frontiers' idea.
So Frontiers is a series of journals.
I'm an editor of Frontiers in Neuroscience, but there are Frontiers in
other aspects, in psychology, in neurology, in plant physiology,
in various areas, and this is the idea that things should be open access.
We cannot close knowledge as the old-fashioned journals.
We should open our knowledge through Open Access journals.
And this is what's happening, and Frontiers is leading this thing today.
Recently, Nature Publishing group joined us, and so
we're trying to lead the fact that science is not only for scientists.
Scientist is for scientist to help other scientist to improve, but
science, eventually, is for you, for society, and we have the duty.
As in this course, I've tried my best to explain science, but
it's not closed within science.
So the whole Open Access, new direction, both through this MOOC phenomena,
Coursera, and through this Frontiers and Open Access direction
is something important, beautiful, and will change society in terms of knowledge.
Finally, a personal work.
I should tell you, first of all, it's the first experience for me ever
to talk to 40 or 20,000 people, not knowing you.
So I get feedback from you, huge feedback, and
guy here, my TA is extremely helpful and
instrumentally making all this interaction as lively as possible.
This is a new experience.
I should tell you that I'm not used not to get feedback by a question online or
by an eyebrow that says, what's happening, I don't understand, or I understand.
So this kind of interaction is new and different, one has to get used to it.
I did my best.
I hope that you enjoyed it.
I enjoyed it, because I felt all the time that somebody there is listening,
I don't know where or who.
I saw from the forums, I saw from the interactions,
that you form local groups, that you discuss some of the discussions.
I myself learned from it, discussion about consciousness and other issues.
There are some blogs that took my lessons and improved them by adding some notes and
some explanation and some arrows and some equations.
So this is beautiful, this is what it is all about.
This is about knowledge, this is about interaction, this is about the new world,
the new world of disseminating astutely.
Not just by internet, because there you can say anything you want, but
astutely, by professionals that stand behind what they say.
And it is for you, and
it was very much dependent on your very good feedback for me.
Thank you very much.
See you soon.
We don't know when, but I'm sure another course will happen one day.
Goodbye, thank you very much.
Toda Rabba would say in Hebrew, many thanks for you.
See you soon in the 21st Century of the Brain.
Shalom
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