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Cognitive
Neuroscience
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The central question
to be addressed
is: How does brain enable mind and behavior? Cognitive neuroscience is
an
emerging interdisciplinary field in which psychological, physiological,
and
computational methodologies are brought to bear in understanding the
neural
basis of cognitive processes. In this
course, we will consider the application of methodologies such as
physiological
recordings from neurons in awake, behaving animals, functional
neuroimaging (EEG and fMRI) of normal
subjects performing cognitive tasks, behavioral studies of
brain-injured
patients with selective cognitive deficits, and computational modeling
of
normal and impaired processing, in understanding cognitive domains such
as
high-level vision and attention, learning and memory, reading and
language,
meaning and semantics, and the organization and control of action. In
each
instance, the emphasis will be on how the application of converging
methodologies, particularly those related to brain organization and
function,
leads to important insights into the nature of cognitive processes that
would
be difficult to obtain through any one conventional methodology alone.
Neuroimaging
Seminar
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This seminar will examine how the
brain enables higher level
cognitive processes, such as perception, memory, problem solving,
language comprehension,
visual thinking, etc. The class will examine what recent brain imaging
studies
can tell us about these various cognitive processes. This new
scientific
approach has the potential of providing important information about how
the
brain thinks, indicating not only what parts of the brain perform what
function, but also how the activities of different parts of the brain
are
organized to jointly enable cognition, and how various neurological
diseases
(e.g. aphasia, neglect) affect brain activity. This course will be
offered as a
seminar format covering selected topics in neuroimaging methods, and
cognitive function
related to brain activity. Part of the course will be ‘lab-based’
dedicated to
hands-on learning of neuroimaging data acquisition and analysis.
Honors
Seminar
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The exact topic of this seminar
varies from semester to
semester. Regardless of the topic, the class is designed to examine
what the
current state of knowledge is, as gathered from multiple scientific perspectives: perceptual
psychology, neuropsychology, and neuroscience. As we tackle different
topics,
we will discuss and evaluate different techniques of scientific
inquiry. How is
progress made in science? What kinds of experiments are the most
effective? How
has the development of new neuroimaging techniques (fMRI, for example)
shaped
the field? The course includes a 'lab-based' component dedicated to
hands-on
learning of neuroimaging data acquisition and analysis.
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