Course description
This course examines the development of the neurosciences from the late eighteenth century to the early twenty-first century, with the aim of providing students with a firm foundation in their historical, philosophical, technical, and cultural contexts. Topics to be examined include the origins of neuroscience in eighteenth- and nineteenth-century debates over phrenology and the localization of mental faculties; the emergence of reflex theory and arguments over the evolution of the nervous system; the emergence of neurology and neurosurgery as medical specialties; lobotomy and the debates over psychosurgery; the technological turn in the brain sciences and the emergence of neuroscience during the cold war; the birth of modern brain scanning technologies; Alzheimer's, Parkinson's and other diseases of the nervous system; artificial intelligence and neural networks; and contemporary debates over autism and neurodiversity.
