Welcome to the last video of this course.
I hope you've enjoyed learning about
the cellular mechanisms of brain function.
Our goal in this course was to obtain
a causal and mechanistic understanding
of how the mammalian brain works.
Because the brain is made of cells,
in any mechanistic explanation of brain function,
it's essential to think about the activity
of individual neurons and their synaptic interactions.
The brain is a very large synaptically connected neuronal network
and the complexity is bewildering.
We're only at the beginning of a great adventure.
And clearly we still have much to learn for further neuroscience research.
However, as we've seen, modern neuroscience
is beginning to provide answers about the causal mechanisms
underlying simple behaviors, at least in mice.
And much of what we learn from studying mice,
will have direct implications for understanding
human brain function and dysfunction,
and will likely give rise to novel therapies
for various brain disorders.
This course has focused on the biophysics of brain function
seeking to explain the miliscecond by milisecond processing
of sensory motor information by neurons, synapses,
and neuronal circuits during behavior.
We've tried to bridge different spatial temporal scales
of analysis of the mammalian brain.
From nanometer-sized ion channels
transitioning between closed and open states
on the microsecond time scale,
ranging to the investigation of intact sensory motor neuronal circuits,
spanning a centimeter or so in the mouse brain,
and operating on behaviorally relevant time scales
from milliseconds to days during the learning of behavioral tasks.
Remarkable technological advances are driving the discovery
of new aspects of brain function through measurement and perturbations
with increasing specificity in behaving mice.
It now seems quite likely that in the next 50 years or so,
we'll have a very good understanding of how the mouse brain works.
Obviously, in a short course of seven weeks,
it's only possible to cover some selected topics.
I hope this course has provided you with a good foundation
allowing you to think further about how the brain works.
And I hope this course has wet your appetite to learn more.
Here we've taken a biophysical, bottom up approach
to studying the mammalian brain.
But there are many other important perspectives,
many of which we've barely touched upon in this course.
For example, developmental studies and comparative studies across species
will help us understand the logic of how the nervous system
is put together,
giving important information about general, organizing principles.
We only briefly mentioned some aspects of molecular biology and genetics.
And there's much more to learn about molecular neuroscience
both in terms of providing sophisticated tools
for studying the functioning of the mammalian brain,
but also in terms of modeling human genetic brain disorders in mice
with the hope of better understanding brain diseases
in order to provide rational treatments.
Finally, as we obtain increasingly detailed information
on how the brain works,
it will become more and more important
to quantitatively test these hypotheses from computational modeling
and it is therefore important for the modern neuroscientist
to be intimately familiar with mathematical modeling methods
So I also encourage you to spend time
studying computational and theoretical neuroscience.
With these last thoughts in mind,
I'd like to thank you for your participation in this course
and to wish you all the best for the future.