The main objectives of this module are:

 

After completion of the course, students are able to

1. define general principles and tools of cognitive neuroscience
2. understand and explain the multiple neurobiological mechanisms of the control/regulation of learning and behaviour
3. understand and explain the neurobiological mechanisms of emotion
4. understand and explain the neurobiological mechanisms of food intake
5. apply these insights to understand the mechanisms underlying the effects of stress on learning and behaviour, emotion and food intake
6. evaluate and present scientific literature in this field
7. design an experimental set-up to answer basic research questions about the neurobiological basis of the regulation of behaviour, emotion and food intake.

The module 

This course will start with a general introduction to cognitive neuroscience, a field of science that aims to understand the neurobiological underpinnings of the mind. It will focus on cognitive control of behaviour and emotion with special reference to stress. We will address a variety of topics, including appetitive and aversive reinforcement learning, goal-directed and habitual decision making, food intake regulation, and emotion regulation.
This focus  on the control of behaviour and emotion allows students to appreciate the success and clinical relevance of basic human cognitive neuroscience. This will be achieved by providing a multi-disciplinary and convergent-methods approach, integrating essential theoretical and experimental frameworks from experimental psychology, neuroimaging and psychopharmacology in humans.
By the end of the course, students will have obtained knowledge about the various theoretical frameworks that exist for guiding and interpreting empirical evidence on important constructs in this quickly developing field. In addition, the course will engage them in several activities to get them thinking like scientists. For example, they will be taught to leverage existing knowledge to critically evaluate internationally published research papers, and lead discussions on these articles. Finally, they will be taught to judge and combine existing knowledge and ideas to create new ideas by developing and presenting a research proposal to address an unanswered question in the field.