Spring Courses 2013
NEU 258/PSY 258Fundamentals of Neuroscience(STN)This is a survey course on neuroscience, focusing mainly on sensory and motor processing in the primate brain. How does information from the outside world get into the brain, what neuronal pathways does it follow, how is it processed and used to construct an internal model of three-dimensional reality, and how does the brain choose and coordinate the correct behavioral response?Michael S. Graziano
NEU 408/MOL 408/PSY 404Cellular and Systems Neuroscience(STN)A survey of fundamental principles in neurobiology at the biophysical, cellular, and system levels. Lectures will address the basis of the action potential, synaptic transmission and plasticity, local circuit computation, sensory physiology, and motor control. A central theme will be the understanding of systems phenomena in terms of cellular mechanisms.Michael J. Berry
PSY 338/NEU 338Animal Learning and Decision Making: Psychological, Computational and Neural Perspectives(EC)Course designed to expose students to a modern, integrative view of animal learning phenomena from experimental psychology, through the lens of computational models and current neuroscientific knowledge. At the psychological level, we will concentrate on classical and instrumental conditioning. Computationally, we will view these as exemplars of prediction learning and action selection, the pillars of reinforcement learning. Neurally, we will focus on the roles of dopamine and the basal ganglia at the systems level. Students will see how the study of animal decision making can inform us about the computations that take place in the brain.Yael Niv
PSY 401/NEU 401/HUM 401History of Neuroscience(EC)Survey of the growth of ideas on the role of the brain in sensation, cognition, movement and mental disease, particularly in classical antiquity and 18th century to 20th century Europe, including social and political context for scientific and medical advances. Course is composed of lectures, discussion and student presentations.Charles G. Gross
PSY 402/NEU 402Introduction to Clinical Neuropsychology: Case Studies in Cognitive Neuroscience(EC)Much of what we know about the brain systems underlying perception, attention, memory, and language was first derived from patients with brain lesions or other brain pathology. This course provides an introduction to major syndromes in clinical neuropsychology such as object agnosia (deficits in object recognition), amnesia, visuospatial hemineglect (attention deficits), aphasia (language deficits), and others through careful analysis of clinical cases and their underlying pathology.Sabine Kastner
PSY 417/NEU 417The Neural Basis of Goal-Directed Behavior(EC)A fundamental property of human action is its orientation toward specific desired goals. Understanding the computations and neural mechanisms underlying this goal-directedness stands as a central challenge for both psychology and neuroscience. We will review major theories characterizing the role of goals in behavior, from cognitive, social and developmental psychology, animal behavior research, and artificial intelligence. We'll then review a range of neuroscientific data in an effort to sketch out the neural substrates of goal-directed behavior, considering the neural basis of goal evaluation, selection, representation, and pursuit.Matthew M. Botvinick