Learning About Learning: A Course on Neurobiology of Learning and Memory
COURSE OUTLINE: In this course, we propose to teach the rules governing learning and how they result in the storage of information in the form of memory. The course structure is such that the lectures introduce the student/listener to the fundamental rules that determine learning through a historical perspective. Such a design helps the listener/student to understand how these rules came about, what were the experimental observations led to the rules. In the course, we will be using these rules and applying them to various situations and experimental setting and analyse the behavioural outcomes. The framework for understanding associative learning is presented in the first few lectures followed by reinforcement learning/instrumental conditioning. In the end, synergistic views of both the learning are presented followed by a description of some of the modern behavioural paradigms. Towards the latter part of the course, the lectures connect these behavioural studies to molecular underpinnings. Read more