Undergraduate Course: The Neurobiology of Cognition (NEBM10025)
Course Outline
| School | School of Biomedical Sciences |
College | College of Medicine and Veterinary Medicine |
| Credit level (Normal year taken) | SCQF Level 10 (Year 4 Undergraduate) |
Availability | Not available to visiting students |
| SCQF Credits | 10 |
ECTS Credits | 5 |
| Summary | Progress in contemporary neuroscience is beginning to give us a handle on the network, cellular, molecular and genetic mechanisms that underlie 'cognition'. This second-semester course will build on the foundations laid in Term 1 in courses such as Cognitive Neuroscience, Learning and Memory and Neurogenetics and be suitable for students who have done at least two of these courses.
The course will consist of a mixture of lectures and seminars concerning the underlying neural mechanisms of perception, attention, learning and memory, and action-selection and initiation. Research conducted using both humans and animals will be covered. Key ideas to be covered include concepts such as the canonical cortical circuit, overt and covert attention, the dissociable mechanisms of encoding, storage, consolidation and retrieval of memory, and the distinct circuits underlying actions and habits. The course will focus upon both normal function, and how cognition suffers in both neurodegenerative and psychiatric disease.
Students will be expected to work together in groups to present a synopsis of recent assigned research papers in one seminar, to suggest ways in which current research could be creatively improved, and give a short 'public engagement' type of talk in a final seminar.
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| Course description |
Not entered
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Course Delivery Information
| Not being delivered |
Learning Outcomes
At the start of the course, the incoming students would be expected to have some understanding of cognitive neuroscience, or learning and memory, or how genetic mutations are associated with alterations in cognitive function.
By the end of the course, the students would:
1. Recognise distinct and dissociable components of cognitive function in humans and animals.
2. Understand that it is the interplay of specific neural circuits, together with synaptic and cellular mechanisms guided by distinct patterns of gene activation that collectively determine the normal but distinct aspects of cognitive function.
3. Understand how this delicate balance can be disturbed by brain injury, by drugs and by genetic mutations.
4. Realise the value of an interdisciplinary approach to cognitive function rather than one based solely on psychological experiments at one of the spectrum or the discovery of genetic mutations at the other end.
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Additional Information
| Graduate Attributes and Skills |
Not entered |
| Keywords | NEURONeurobCog |
Contacts
| Course organiser | Dr Thomas Theil
Tel: (0131 6)50 3721
Email: thomas.theil@ed.ac.uk |
Course secretary | Ms Caroline Morris
Tel: (0131 6)51 3255
Email: c.d.morris@ed.ac.uk |
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