PHYS 470 The Brain as a Physical System
What function(s) does the brain perform? How does it perform its functions? How do neurons work and how do their mutual connections give rise to the biological functionality of the brain? How did the brain evolve from simpler control mechanisms? This course will start with a discussion of the evolutionary forces - selection, drift, recombination, mutation - that build complex adaptive mechanisms like the brain in living systems and briefly review the evolutionary history of humans. We will then present a simplified overview of the anatomy of the brain and discuss the anatomy and physiology of the neuron. A gentle introduction to the basic concepts of information theory including probability, entropy, representations, computation, Turing machines, computability, and the Church-Turing thesis will be given. The elements of feedback-control will be discussed. Methods to assay brain activity including functional magnetic resonance imaging, optogenetics, and the electroencephalogram will be described. A simplified introduction to the language of dynamical systems will be given. The basics of neural networks, their architecture, and their dynamics, especially neuronal oscillations, will be presented at a semi-qualitative level. We will also discuss recent developments in artificial neural networks and what they can (and cannot) teach us about the brain.
Cross Listed Courses
PHYS 469, PHYS 569,
PHYS 669