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

4.7
stars
646 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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126 - 150 of 174 Reviews for The Brain and Space

By KAUSHIKKUMAR K R

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Mar 30, 2020

GOOD COURSE.

By Ahmad A

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Nov 23, 2019

Profissional

By Divya D

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Nov 21, 2018

Amazing!!!!!

By Evren G

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May 3, 2018

Inspiring!

By Ilsen M G E

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Oct 14, 2021

Excelente

By Narinder P S

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Aug 7, 2020

Wonderful

By piyush k

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May 28, 2020

Excellent

By Jacobo R

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May 23, 2022

awesome

By Paola F

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May 17, 2018

great !

By ERIC

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Aug 3, 2017

perfect

By Shreya

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Apr 18, 2021

greatt

By YUAN Y

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Mar 27, 2019

great~

By MUTHUKUDA A C S S

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Jul 18, 2022

goood

By Mona A A

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Jul 21, 2020

good

By Braulio F d C

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Apr 2, 2017

I

By Lauren W

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Dec 5, 2016

C

By Hossam I

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May 28, 2021

One of the best courses which introduces Neuroscience and shows the integration in the whole brain and how cognitive and sensory functions connected. I enjoyed the lectures a lot and the quizes were very good and gives insight on the understanding process of the given lectures. Only I missed written lecture notes as I have gone through different Courses and they introduced a better way in providing notes on each week at lesast.

Dr. Jennifer M. Groh made a very impressive work there and it was magnifcent to

enjoy this journey as I was fascinated by Nobel 2014 in Physiology and medicine and recently the course helped me to understand recent advances about how a man could restore his vision and the pathway of the process.

By Tata V S R

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May 15, 2020

It is an informative course for every adult. It adds up to clarity in one's ability in regards to basic perception.

Auditory issues discussed appear to be limited to proximities from the top and horizontal, but in reality, in my personnel experience, the sound terminating from the bottom creates a doubt in the mind.

The wind factor is another issue which creates confusion with regards to location and its ability to influence or alter the sound wave.

For the rest, it is a real and highly valuable experience gained and all credit goes to Professor Jennifer M.Groh.

By Yves-Laurent G

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Jun 14, 2024

Good course. Somehow the level was more elementary than I had expected from the description. Certainly a good introduction to the topic for a beginer like me. It is important to have the book for review or for further reading as the videos are very condensed and the slides overall not very good. I found the weekly assignments very useful.

By Paul C

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Dec 5, 2021

Coming from a background of AI ( Deep Learning etc...), I wanted to look at some of the inspirations for artificial neural networks.

An enlightening course ( remembering the different parts of the brain is still a challenge for me), which leaves me wanting to learning more. The supporting book for the course is also a good read.

By Carolina P

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Jul 5, 2016

This is an excellent course for those who want to get a better understanding about the brain and how it processes everyday stimulus. The professor is without doubt very knowledgable and explains everything in a very professional and yet simple way.

By Thomas P M

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Feb 1, 2020

It was a fun course. I really learnt a lot, through her lectures, especially the different experiments. Really appreciate Coursera for providing with financial aid for me to take the class :)

By Brandon M

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Sep 19, 2024

This course is well worth it. I would have given it 5 stars if it contained even more in-depth coverage of how our brain works spatially; perhaps some content involving computation.

By Alihan H

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Aug 25, 2021

The curriculum of the course was well structured and the instructor was great. It could have been a bit longer as it was hard to follow sometimes due to its busy schedule.

By Jab B

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Jun 8, 2022

Very informative with interesting case studies and researches. Thank you very much for creating this course, Dr. Jennifer Groh and Duke University!