Building the Brain

Undergraduate / Graduate

This course describes fundamental principles of how brains grow up from the perspective of the basic organizational unit of brains, the cell. We will detail development from the very earliest events in zygotes to post-natal refinement of synaptic connections years after birth. We will endeavor to understand how principles of neural development were discovered, abandoned, and re-discovered using the lens of history and biography. We will accomplish these goals with readings of primary literature, discussions of the tools used to discover these principles, and debates on the temerity of declaring that these principles exist.