Current Topics in Cognitive Neuroscience
From neural signals to cognition: basic building blocks of the mind
How do billions of neurons convert sensory information into behavior? Classical studies examining these questions either focus on the activity of small groups of neurons or on one or several brain areas. But what are the true building blocks supporting perceptual and cognitive brain functions? In this seminar, we will examine this question in an interactive format. We will start out with several classical studies addressing this question, followed by more recent developments using a variety of different approaches, including single cell recordings, representational similarity analysis and deep neural networks and behaviraol methods. Throughout the seminar we will critically discuss the evidence and think of alternative approaches. While the focus will be on the perception of objects and actions, we will discuss to which degree the concepts and methods we will acquire in this seminar can be applied to related domains.
In our weekly sessions, students will be tasked to read primary source journal articles reporting experimental results, and summative review articles, and to submit bullet points before each seminar. These bullet points will be used to facilitate discussion of key points – either in smaller groups or in the whole group - moderated by students, with the help of the instructor.
By the end of this seminar, students will
- be familiar with several key findings and current debates in Cognitive Neuroscience, and they will have reasoned about the way these findings and debates link to their previous knowledge;
- be familiar with some key paradigms and approaches used in Cognitive Neuroscience;
- be able to read, summarize and critically evaluate scientific papers;
- have gathered experience in working in groups;
- have gathered experience in giving short presentations, and in moderating discussions;
- have developed basic skills in thinking about designs for own future studies.
