Description
The Embodied Brain explores one of the most fundamental questions in neuroscience: how does the nervous system construct the body we experience as our own?
Beginning with the cortical maps associated with Wilder Penfield, the course moves beyond the classical homunculus to examine sensory and motor representation, proprioception, body schema, body ownership, neuroplasticity, phantom limbs, pain, predictive processing, distributed neural networks and embodied cognition.
The course is designed as a structured intellectual journey rather than a conventional sequence of short lessons. Each section combines substantive reading, conceptual diagrams, applied cases, interpretive distinctions and assessments that emphasize reasoning rather than simple recall.
Learners are encouraged to interpret evidence, distinguish scientific models from biological reality and understand how bodily experience emerges from the interaction of brain, body, action and environment.
Key areas covered
- cortical sensory and motor representation;
- Penfield’s homunculus and its limitations;
- proprioception and body schema;
- body image, ownership and agency;
- multisensory integration;
- neuroplasticity and learning;
- recovery after neurological injury;
- phantom-limb phenomena;
- nociception and pain;
- neurological dissociations;
- modern brain-mapping methods;
- distributed neural networks;
- predictive processing;
- embodied and extended cognition.
