Table of Contents
The Brain
General Facts
Brain Stem
Neocortex
Oliver Sacks
Jeff Hawkins
Books
Links:
The Brain
General Facts
Control center of the central nervous system
Consists of three parts
Forebrain:
Higher functions (thought, reason, abstraction) → consciously controlled
Midbrain & Hindbrain:
Lower functions (heartbeat, body temperature) → unconsciously controlled
Brain Stem
Lower part of the brain
Midbrain is part of Brainstem
Connected to spinal cord
„Interface“ to body
All information passes through the brain stem
Neocortex
Part of the front brain
represents 60-75% of the brain
the so called new brain
size off about 1000cm²
2-3 mm thick
holds about 30 billion neurons
General functions:
Sensory perception
Generation of motor commands
Spatial reasoning
Conscious
Thought
Language
Oliver Sacks
Born July 9, 1933 in London
Famous neurologist
Wrote several books about his patients
Awakenings (Movie with Robin Williams and Robert De Niro)
The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat
Jeff Hawkins
Born *1957 in New York
Graduated as electrical engineer at Cornell University
Co-Founder of
Palm Inc.
, Handspring and
Numenta
Developed products like the Palm One and the Treo mobile phone
Founder of the
The Redwood Center for Theoretical Neuroscience
Generally interested in neuroscience
His goal is to understand the brain to build intelegent machines
Concerning to him there are no theories of how the brain works
Books
Hawkins, Jeff (2006). Die Zukunft der Intelligenz, Rowohlt Taschenbuch Verlag, ISBN 0-3499-62167-3
Original edititon:
Hawkins, Jeff (2005). On intelligence, Times Books, Henry Holt and Co., ISBN 0-8050-7456-2
Sacks, Oliver (2001). The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat, MacMillan, ISBN 0-3302-9491-1
Links:
Wikipedia article about Jeff Hawkins
Numenta - Hierarchical Temporal Memory System
Jeff Hawkins - Wie funktioniert das Gehirn
Abstract of presentation in german, presentation in english