Kavli Brain Science Workshop, Summer 2011

Science has new methods to watch our brains at work, and a torrent of new information is coming out of brain science labs---from tracking the fight between neurons themselves as they are established in networks to watching as brains form moral judgments. Dreams and daydreams can shape decision-making, false beliefs can be established and true ones undone, and our brains are not alone but often work in groups without our full awareness of it.

Some researchers are hoping to engineer the brain at work to turn on and off some thinking, while other are programming computers to read human emotions.

For journalists, the streaming developments are hard to follow. To help journalists make sense of all this, the Knight Science Journalism program at MIT is offering a three-day intensive course on the basics of the new brain sciences. The workshop will bring some of the top neuroscientists in the U.S. to explain their work and to become first-rate sources for the attending journalists.

From the basics of how neurons grow and connect, to how neural networks underlie behavior, to the subject of consciousness, we will explore the booming new neural sciences.