Baroness Susan Greenfield CBE – The Future of the Brain
Baroness Susan Greenfield CBE – The Future of the Brain
Speaker biography
Baroness Greenfield is Director of the Royal Institution of Great Britain (the first woman to hold that position) and Professor of Pharmacology at the University of Oxford, where she leads a multi-disciplinary team investigating neurodegenerative disorders. In addition she is Director of the Oxford Centre for the Science of the Mind, exploring the physical basis of consciousness.
Her books include The Human Brain: A Guided Tour (1997), The Private Life of the Brain (2000), and Tomorrow's People: How 21st Century Technology Is Changing the Way We Think and Feel (2003) and 'ID' - The Quest for Identity in the 21st Century published in May 2008 by Hodder Publishing. She has spun off four companies from her research, made a diverse contribution to print and broadcast media, and led a Government report on Women In Science. She has received 29 Honorary Degrees, Honorary Fellowship of the Royal College of Physicians (2000), a non-political Life Peerage (2001) as well as the Ordre National de la Legion d'Honneur (2003). In 2006 she was installed as Chancellor of Heriot-Watt University and voted 'Honorary Australian of the Year'. In 2007 she was made a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh.
Distinguished Lecture: The Future of the Brain
Wednesday 4 November 2009
Djanogly International Centre, NTU City site
Baroness Greenfield's accessible, shocking and illuminating presentation launched the 2009/10 series of Nottingham Trent University's Distinguished Lectures, and was a rapid-fire commentary on the neurochemistry of the human brain.
Lecture synopsis
Neuroscience is offering an increasing number of insights into the "plasticity" of the human brain, i.e. we are gradually realising how very sensitive our brain cell circuitry is to every moment of individual experience for each developing individual. Given this malleability of the brain to the external environment, it follows that if that environment is changing, the brain might change too. What possible changes to the mindset of subsequent generations might occur with an escalation in screen based activities? In particular, we need to explore thinking processes, attitudes to risk and notions of identity.
