Build a brain workshop: constructing conciousness

How does our brain handle all the information it receives? Does it represent reality? Does it ever get it wrong? In this talk, I will look at how the mind emerges from the brain via the lens of computation. I will show examples in which the brain computes a whole that is greater or actually different than the sum of its parts. Is that natural intelligence? And should artificial intelligence replicate it?

Understanding how we learn has always fascinated me, not in the experiential way that we attend lectures or watch documentaries, but what happens to our brains when we experience a new learning situation? How do our brains physically change so we can remember the experience, store the new information and put it in context? In this talk I will discuss what happens deep within our brains - at the level of the nerve cell - and how these nerve cells join together to make us who we are.

The brain is claimed to be the most complex organ in the human body, but how is it made and can we replicate this process in the lab? In just 10 minutes, I’ll show you how my lab is using a combination of tools and 3D cellular models to understand how the human brain is formed, how a brain cell knows it’s a brain cell and how it knows exactly what it’s supposed to do. I’ll summarise what we’ve learnt so far from this research and demonstrate that you probably already know the answer to most of these questions already…