Course Overview

Embark on a startling voyage into the human mind to discover how the various aspects of your memory operate. An award-winning professor explains the different systems that make memory possible and how these systems work together. What if your memory suddenly vanished, so that you could no longer summon recollections of anything at all? What if you couldn’t even remember yourself—not your name, your school, where you worked, or even the face of the total stranger staring back at you from the mirror?

If all of your memories were gone, would “self” even have a meaning? The truth is that while you may think of human memory as a capacity—a way to call up important facts or episodes from your past—it is much, much more: a collection of systems that provide the continuity of consciousness that allows the concept of “you” to make sense, creating the ongoing narrative that makes your life truly yours.

This intriguing series of 24 lectures by an honored researcher and teacher explains not only how the various aspects of your memory operate, but the impact memory has on your daily experience of life. By understanding how the brain organizes and encodes information, you can better harness its extraordinary powers to fine-tune how it works for you and use this information to help reshape your very experience of being alive.

The lectures explore topics like:

• The different kinds of systems that make memory possible.

• How those systems work together to build and access memories of specific events, solve problems, learn basic tasks like brushing your teeth, or acquire the skills to play a musical instrument.

• The kinds of memory deficits that result when various parts of the brain are damaged or deteriorate.

• How memory shapes not only your experience of the past but also of the present, as well as your expectations of the future.

• How your memory systems develop throughout your life.

Course Lectures

01: Your Amazing Prehistoric Memory

Discover how remarkable your memory ability can be and get an introduction to some of the fascinating ways you can transform your average memory into an excellent one. After a quick memory test to set the stage, Professor Vishton introduces you to one of the most basic ways your memory can encode information: the Major System.

Duration: 34 min

02: Encoding Information with Images

Focus on one of the simplest tricks for memorizing information: the Method of Loci. Like the Major System, this strategy encodes information into a format your brain is especially good at using; in this case, it ties information to a physical location. Gain familiarity with this method through several engaging exercises.

Duration: 33 min

03: Maximizing Short- and Long-Term Memory

In this insightful lecture, Professor Vishton walks you through the three steps of successful memory: a perception to short-term memory, encoding short-term memory to your long-term memory, and retrieving information from your long-term memory.

Duration: 30 min

04: Why and When We Forget

Forgetting happens to the best of us—but it can be mitigated through the use of several key techniques. Among the topics you’ll investigate are the “Ebbinghaus forgetting function,” which offers insights into the relationship between time, amount of studying, and the likelihood of memory recall.

Duration: 30 min

05: Keeping Your Whole Brain in Peak Condition

To have a good memory that functions at the peak of its powers, you need to keep your entire brain healthy. Professor Vishton shows you how to do just that.

Duration: 29 min

06: Human Memory Is Reconstruction, Not Replay

Why should you bother enhancing your memory when there are computers that can do it for you? In what ways is information stored on a computer different from information stored in the recesses of your brain?

Duration: 31 min

07: The Visual Process

One of the more scientific sides of experimental psychology is revealed in this look at the discipline’s most studied and best-known system—a true miracle of organization and function.

Duration: 30 min

08: The Auditory System

Like seeing, hearing is a construction of the brain. This lecture discusses how the ear converts pressure waves in the air into electrical signals that travel to the auditory areas of the brain, where they are interpreted as sound.

Duration: 30 min

09: The Somatosensory System

The somatosensory system gives us information not only about the immediate external world but also about our own bodies.

Duration: 32 min

10: Agnosias

Agnosia (“without knowledge”) is the inability of individuals to recognize some aspect of their sensory experience because of lesions in the brain.

Duration: 32 min

11: The Motor System-Voluntary Movement

Not only do we experience the world, we move around in it. This lecture covers the pathways and brain areas that allow us to make voluntary movements of the body.

Duration: 31 min

12: Language

The ability to communicate symbolically through language is thought to be unique to our species.

Duration: 31 min

13: The Limbic System-Anatomy

The limbic system represents a large number of interconnected nuclei that together allow for learning, memory, emotion, and executive function.

Duration: 31 min

14: Depression

Depression is a scourge of modern societies. This lecture focuses on unipolar depression, a central nervous system disorder that has known anatomical and biochemical correlates.

Duration: 31 min

15: The Reward System-Anatomy

All humans seek experiences that are rewarding or pleasurable. This lecture covers the brain structures and neurotransmitters involved in reward.

Duration: 31 min

16: Brain Plasticity

Far from being static structures, synapses are highly dynamic and can be modified by experience.

Duration: 31 min

17: Emotion and Executive Function

Truly rational behavior is not possible without emotion.

Duration: 31 min

18: Processing of Negative Emotions-Fear

Fear is often considered a negative emotion, but it is critical for survival.

Duration: 31 min

19: Music and the Brain

The ability to write, read, and perform music requires the coordinated activity of the sensory, motor, language, and limbic systems of the brain.

Duration: 29 min

20: Sleep and Dreaming

Why do we sleep? What, if anything, do dreams mean?

Duration: 31 min

21: Consciousness and the Self

Why does consciousness appear to be something that is happening to a “me”?

Duration: 32 min

22: Alzheimer’s Disease

This lecture uses the number one neurological disorder in the United States—Alzheimer’s disease—as a clinical example.

Duration: 30 min

23: Risk Factors for Alzheimer’s Disease

We look at what has been learned about factors that appear to increase or decrease the risk of contracting Alzheimer’s disease.

Duration: 30 min

24: Neuroscience-Looking Back and Looking Ahead

We summarize the course, survey present research challenges, and address the question: What does our remarkable understanding of the brain tell us about ourselves?

Duration: 32 min