A 29 lecture video course on approaches to understanding cognitive processes in terms of brain anatomy and physiology is now available at  www.understandinghighercognition.com

The lectures are based on a course given to third year and graduate students in computer science, psychology and neuroscience at the Australian National University in Canberra and also at Simon Fraser University in Vancouver, Canada.

Topics covered include:

       -   The nature of understanding: lessons from the computer science approach to understanding complex systems

       -   Major cognitive phenomena: attention; different types of memory; speech and consciousness

       -   Key topics in brain anatomy, physiology and chemistry

       -   Practical pressures on brain architecture exerted by natural selection: resource limits, learning without interference with prior 

           learning, etc; 

       -   Architectural forms resulting from the practical pressures

       -   Evidence for the existence of the predicted architectural forms in the brain; how to use the forms to support understanding

       -   Understanding attention and different types of memory: semantic, episodic, priming, working and procedural memory

       -   Understanding specific cognitive tasks

       -   Understanding human consciousness and self awareness.

Each lecture is divided into 5 - 10 minute topic videos. Lecture format is mainly images and graphics supported by verbal explanations. 

Textbook for the course is "Towards a Theoretical Neuroscience: from Cell Chemistry to Cognition" published by Springer.

Access to the lectures is free.