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Learner Reviews & Feedback for The Brain and Space by Duke University

4.7
stars
634 ratings

About the Course

This course is about how the brain creates our sense of spatial location from a variety of sensory and motor sources, and how this spatial sense in turn shapes our cognitive abilities. Knowing where things are is effortless. But “under the hood,” your brain must figure out even the simplest of details about the world around you and your position in it. Recognizing your mother, finding your phone, going to the grocery store, playing the banjo – these require careful sleuthing and coordination across different sensory and motor domains. This course traces the brain’s detective work to create this sense of space and argues that the brain’s spatial focus permeates our cognitive abilities, affecting the way we think and remember. The material in this course is based on a book I've written for a general audience. The book is called "Making Space: How the Brain Knows Where Things Are", and is available from Amazon, Barnes and Noble, or directly from Harvard University Press. The course material overlaps with classes on perception or systems neuroscience, and can be taken either before or after such classes. Dr. Jennifer M. Groh, Ph.D. Professor Psychology & Neuroscience; Neurobiology Duke University www.duke.edu/~jmgroh Jennifer M. Groh is interested in how the brain process spatial information in different sensory systems, and how the brain's spatial codes influence other aspects of cognition. She is the author of a recent book entitled "Making Space: How the Brain Knows Where Things Are" (Harvard University Press, fall 2014). Much of her research concerns differences in how the visual and auditory systems encode location, and how vision influences hearing. Her laboratory has demonstrated that neurons in auditory brain regions are sometimes responsive not just to what we hear but also to what direction we are looking and what visual stimuli we can see. These surprising findings challenge the prevailing assumption that the brain’s sensory pathways remain separate and distinct from each other at early stages, and suggest a mechanism for such multi-sensory interactions as lip-reading and ventriloquism (the capture of perceived sound location by a plausible nearby visual stimulus). Dr. Groh has been a professor at Duke University since 2006. She received her undergraduate degree in biology from Princeton University in 1988 before studying neuroscience at the University of Michigan (Master’s, 1990), the University of Pennsylvania (Ph.D., 1993), and Stanford University (postdoctoral, 1994-1997). Dr. Groh has been teaching undergraduate classes on the neural basis of perception and memory for over fifteen years. She is presently a faculty member at the Center for Cognitive Neuroscience and the Duke Institute for Brain Sciences at Duke University. She also holds appointments in the Departments of Neurobiology and Psychology & Neuroscience at Duke. Dr. Groh’s research has been supported by a variety of sources including the John S. Guggenheim Foundation, the National Institutes of Health, the National Science Foundation, and the Office of Naval Research Young Investigator Program, the McKnight Endowment Fund for Neuroscience, the John Merck Scholars Program, the EJLB Foundation, the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, the Whitehall Foundation, and the National Organization for Hearing Research....

Top reviews

TB

Sep 8, 2020

I like the details that this course provides about the functionality of the brain. Dr Groh definitely took her time to prepare this course, and she likes to go in depth detail about everything.

TZ

Aug 15, 2020

One of the best Neuroscience courses took in my life. The professor is very good at teaching and amazing personality and her research team is very great. Hope one day she would win Nobel Prize

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51 - 75 of 169 Reviews for The Brain and Space

By 孙国怀

Mar 10, 2021

I'm very proud to learing this course, I think that's let me understand lots of knowledge about brain and how we thinking.

Thank you, Dr . Jennifer Groh

By Roberto C

Mar 31, 2019

Enlightening, stimulating, perfect blend of top notch content and understandable videos. Thanks Prof. Groh!!! One of my best courses ever (on/off line)

By Jorge G A

Feb 2, 2021

Excelente curso para adentrarte a la neuropsicología y la Dra. Groh realiza muy buenas explicaciones y ejemplos que facilitan el aprendizaje.

By Renugadevi K

May 26, 2020

It was really interesting lectures. The quiz session was really a motivating task to do and make us to study in depth in future

By Gautam T

May 18, 2020

Fantastic experience. The instructor took extremely hard concepts and explained them in an excellent and understandable manner.

By Archana

Mar 24, 2021

It was a very interesting and thought-inducing course. The experiments also made it highly interactive. It was time well spent

By 오승현

Jul 21, 2019

Because i had this class, i could have heard about the information about the brain for the space and that's very good for me.

By Emmanuel R S

Jan 29, 2023

Sincerely, I enjoyed every lesson, the professor has the gift for teaching. I learned a lot. I truly recommend this course.

By Kajol V S

May 25, 2020

if only I had as many as a 100 stars to rate this course, yet I'd have wished for even more stars to increase the ratings!

By Unkili T

Jan 12, 2022

Its veery helpful for the neurology students who wants to know about the eye, brain, and the space that is surrounding us

By Pratyasha

Feb 28, 2021

Thank you very much Dr. Jennifer for bringing out this amazing course. I thoroughly enjoyed the course and learnt a lot.

By Asif H

May 14, 2020

Definitely it was not a course for beginners, Felt quite hard and also interesting. Learned a lot of new things from it.

By Rufia A

Apr 3, 2017

This was a well-delivered course. I learnt a lot about how the brain functions and how is that applicable in the space.

By Chesley L

Mar 26, 2020

This course is really enjoyable, I enjoy all the related studies and papers and the quizzes are extremely helpful!

By ANSHAY A

Nov 28, 2017

The professor explains things very well. The course is awesome with interesting and well organized content.

By Paul R

Aug 19, 2016

Increible curso. Lo recomiendo para todos aquellos que quieran conocer mas sobre el cerebro y el cuerpo.

By BANAIT A S

May 14, 2020

This course is very informative and helped me to learn many things about the brain and how it works.

By Ouijdane B

Jun 19, 2020

I learned so many helpful things in this course, although I am not an English native but I made it!

By Alexandre S T

Sep 3, 2016

Amazing, congratulation, the curse is fantastic !!!

Best regards,

Alexandre Scherre Tomé / Brazil

By Dorothy H

Aug 15, 2016

This is a superb course appropriate for any level of experience or knowledge with the subject.

By Tehilla S

Oct 9, 2016

Very intersting. Very enjoyable to learn. Great teacher and teaching methods. Fair quizzes.

By Arun K

Nov 24, 2016

Excellent course to understand the basics of vision and how and why we can see. Thank you.

By Peter G

Jun 20, 2016

A great intro to neuroscience. Creative videos that are both informative and fun to watch.

By Mengli

May 30, 2016

I like this class. It provide a lot of detail info. And the teacher is nice and patience.

By ROSANNA G

Jul 23, 2020

Very interesting. The final quizzes in each series of videos help to clarify everything.