Course Description
Video Introduction
Course Overview
How does the brain enable mind and behavior? Cognitive neuroscience is an emerging interdisciplinary field in which divergent methodologies are brought to bear in understanding the neural basis of cognitive processes. We will consider the application of methods such as physiological recordings from neurons in awake, behaving animals, functional neuroimaging of normal subjects performing cognitive tasks, and behavioral studies of brain-injured patients with selective cognitive deficits in understanding cognitive domains such as high-level vision and attention. The emphasis will be on how the application of converging methodologies leads to important insights into the nature of cognitive processes, which would be difficult to obtain through any one conventional methodology alone. The goal of the course is to introduce you to the questions addressed within cognitive neuroscience, and to encourage you to think critically about the strengths and limitations of each methodology and whether they can be integrated into a coherent approach to understanding cognition. The class will be in the format of lectures, with the first half providing the background and the second half focusing on specific topics, but attendees are encouraged to participate and be engaged in interactive and lively discussion throughout.
Presenter
Dr Marlene Behrmann
Presenter Biography
Dr Behrmann is a professor in the Department of Psychology, Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh and the Center for the Neural Basis of Cognition. Her research is concerned with the psychological and neural bases of visual processing, with a particular focus on the way in which the signals from the eye are transformed into meaningful and coherent percepts by the brain. She adopts an interdisciplinary approach using a combination of computational, neuropsychological and functional imaging studies with normal and brain-damaged individuals.
Dr Behrmann has received many awards for her numerous scientific contributions, including the Presidential Early Career Award for Engineering and Science, the APA Distinguished Scientific Award for Early Career Contributions to Behavioral and Cognitive Neuroscience, and the Early career award in Neuropsychology. Dr Behrmann is a Fellow of the American Psychological Society and her research is generously funded by the National Institutes of Health.