Howard Hughes Medical Institute Holiday Lecture Series - Senses and Sensitivity - Lecture One Sensory Transduction - Getting the Message, by A. James Hudspeth, Ph.D., M.D. Lecture 1 of 4.
A. James Hudspeth, Ph.D., M.D., HHMI Investigator at The Rockefeller University.
Jeremy H. Nathans, M.D., Ph.D., HHMI Invesigator at The John Hopkins University School of Medicine.
Whether an animal is selecting a mate, detecting and avoiding a predator, or communicating, it relies on its senses to survive. What are the processes that allow organisms to detect and interpret light, sound, odor, touch, temperature, and other sensory cues? How does the brain make sense of all the information?
In four lively lectures, two noted neuroscientists discuss how sensory information is encoded and transmitted to the brain. The speakers describe the detailed workings of two senses of great inmpotance to humans -- vision and hearing. They explore how the human brain allows people to recognize, for example, a familiar face or voice by dividing sensory information into parallel pathways and processing it in multiple stages.
The lectures feature an animation on the function of the human cochlea, various demonstrations, and questions from a student audience. A Virtual Neurophysiology Lab, an online exhibit, "Hearing and Seeing: Models for Thought," and other interactive resources are available at www.biointeractive.org.