Science Neuroscience

The Human Brain Explained

A clear, practical guide to brain structure, function, behavior, and everyday neuroscience

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Quick Course Facts
19
Self-paced, Online, Lessons
19
Videos and/or Narrated Presentations
6.8
Approximate Hours of Course Media
About the The Human Brain Explained Course

The Human Brain Explained is an accessible Science course for anyone who wants to understand how the brain shapes thought, behavior, emotion, memory, movement, and health. This course gives students a clear, practical guide to brain structure, function, behavior, and everyday neuroscience so complex ideas become useful, memorable, and relevant.

Explore The Human Brain Explained Through Practical Neuroscience

  • Build a strong foundation in neurons, glia, electrical signals, synapses, and neurotransmitters
  • Understand major brain regions, including the cerebral cortex, brainstem, cerebellum, hippocampus, and frontal lobes
  • Connect brain Science to perception, movement, attention, memory, language, emotion, motivation, sleep, and stress
  • Apply everyday neuroscience to brain health, learning, neuroplasticity, aging, injury, and practical habit building

A clear, practical guide to brain structure, function, behavior, and everyday neuroscience.

The Human Brain Explained introduces the essential Science of the nervous system in a structured, approachable way. Students begin with the foundations of neuroscience, learning why the brain matters, how neurons and glial cells work, how electrical signals travel, and how neurotransmitters support communication throughout the nervous system.

The course then moves into brain anatomy and organization with guided lessons on the brain’s major regions, the cerebral cortex, higher thinking, survival systems, and coordination. Students will see how the brain builds a picture of the world through sensation, controls movement, supports attention and awareness, stores memories, enables language, and shapes social connection.

Later lessons connect neuroscience to daily life by exploring emotion, fear, reward, motivation, decision-making, self-control, sleep, stress, development, aging, neuroplasticity, brain injury, disorders, and modern treatment pathways. By the end of this Science course, students will be able to explain core brain systems with confidence and use everyday neuroscience to make more informed choices about learning, behavior, and brain health.

Course Lessons

Full lesson breakdown

Lessons are organized by topic area and each includes descriptive copy for search visibility and student clarity.

Foundations of Neuroscience

4 lessons

Lesson 1: Why the Brain Matters

18 min Preview
This opening lesson explains why the brain is worth studying: it is the biological system that makes perception, movement, thought, emotion, memory, identity, and behavior possible. Students learn tha…

Lesson 2: Neurons, Glia, and the Cells of the Nervous System

21 min
This lesson introduces the major cell types that make the nervous system work: neurons, glia, and supporting cells. Students learn how neurons receive, process, and send information, and why glial cel…

Lesson 3: Electrical Signals and Synaptic Communication

22 min
This lesson explains how neurons create, carry, and pass electrical signals. Students learn the practical meaning of resting membrane potential, action potentials, ion channels, myelin, and synaptic t…

Lesson 4: Neurotransmitters and Chemical Messaging

20 min
Neurotransmitters are the brain’s chemical messengers. They allow neurons to influence one another across synapses, shaping attention, movement, mood, sleep, learning, pain, stress, and many other eve…

Brain Anatomy and Organization

3 lessons

Lesson 5: A Guided Tour of the Brain’s Major Regions

24 min
This lesson gives learners a practical map of the brain’s major regions and how they work together. Rather than treating anatomy as a list of names to memorize, it presents the brain as a set of conne…

Lesson 6: The Cerebral Cortex and Higher Thinking

22 min
This lesson explains the cerebral cortex as the brain’s thin but powerful outer layer, where perception, voluntary action, language, planning, attention, decision-making, and conscious thought are hea…

Lesson 7: The Brainstem, Cerebellum, and Survival Systems

19 min
This lesson explains the brainstem, cerebellum, and core survival systems: the parts of the brain that keep the body alive, oriented, balanced, and ready to respond. Students learn how the midbrain, p…

Perception and Action

2 lessons

Lesson 8: Sensation: How the Brain Builds a Picture of the World

23 min
In this lesson, Professor Anthony Owens explains how sensation begins when specialized receptors convert energy from the outside world and the body into neural signals. Rather than passively recording…

Lesson 9: Movement, Coordination, and Motor Control

20 min
This lesson explains how the brain turns intention and perception into coordinated movement. Students learn the roles of the primary motor cortex, premotor areas, basal ganglia, cerebellum, spinal cir…

Cognition and Experience

3 lessons

Lesson 10: Attention and Conscious Awareness

22 min
This lesson explains how attention selects information for deeper processing and how conscious awareness turns some mental activity into reportable experience. Students learn why attention is limited,…

Lesson 11: Learning, Memory, and the Hippocampus

24 min
This lesson explains how the brain changes with experience, how different kinds of memory are formed, and why the hippocampus is central to learning new facts and events. Students will learn the diffe…

Lesson 12: Language, Communication, and the Social Brain

21 min
This lesson explains how the brain supports language, conversation, and social understanding. It connects classic language regions with broader networks for hearing, meaning, memory, emotion, attentio…

Emotion and Behavior

2 lessons

Lesson 13: Emotion, Fear, Reward, and Motivation

23 min
This lesson explains how emotion is built by interacting brain systems rather than by a single “emotion center.” Students examine the amygdala, hypothalamus, prefrontal cortex, insula, hippocampus, an…

Lesson 14: Decision-Making, Self-Control, and the Frontal Lobes

22 min
This lesson explains how the frontal lobes support decision-making, self-control, planning, emotional regulation, and socially appropriate behavior. It connects everyday choices to brain systems that …

Brain States and Health

2 lessons

Lesson 15: Sleep, Dreams, and Brain Restoration

20 min
This lesson explains what the brain is doing during sleep, why sleep is not a passive shutdown, and how major sleep stages support restoration, learning, emotional regulation, and physical health. Stu…

Lesson 16: Stress, Hormones, and the Brain-Body Connection

21 min
This lesson explains how stress links the brain and body through fast nerve signals, slower hormone responses, and feedback loops that help the body adapt. Students learn the difference between acute …

Brain Change Across Life

2 lessons

Lesson 17: Development, Aging, and Neuroplasticity

24 min
This lesson explains how the brain changes from early development through older adulthood, with a practical focus on neuroplasticity: the brain’s ability to adapt its structure and function in respons…

Lesson 18: Brain Injury, Disorders, and Modern Treatment Pathways

23 min
This lesson explains what happens when brain systems are disrupted by injury, disease, or disorder, and how modern care pathways aim to protect function, support recovery, and improve quality of life.…

Practical Applications

1 lesson

Lesson 19: Building Brain-Healthy Habits with Neuroscience

19 min
This lesson translates everyday neuroscience into a practical habit-building system for supporting brain health. Students learn how sleep, movement, nutrition, stress regulation, attention, social con…
About Your Instructor
Professor Anthony Owens

Professor Anthony Owens

Professor Anthony Owens guides this AI-built Virversity course with a clear, practical teaching style.