This course will provide students with a thorough background in the neurobiological and functional properties of human cognitive and behavioural control, motivation, top-down attention, reinforcement learning and impulsive decision making. This will be achieved by providing a multi-disciplinary and convergent-methods approach, integrating essential theoretical and experimental frameworks from experimental psychology, neuroimaging and electrophysiology, psychopharmacology and computational modeling in humans as well as nonhumans animals.

 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 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.
 

Neurobiological aspects. The course will give a detailed and comprehensive overview of the neurobiological basis of human cognitive control, goal-directed and habitual behavior, and decision making, while taking into account research in humans and animal models. The role of the major ascending neuromodulatory systems, such as those of dopamine and serotonin, will be discussed. Fields ranging from functional neuroanatomy via neurophysiology, psychopharmacology, genetics, computational modeling to cognitive and experimental psychology will be covered.
 
Functional aspects. We will focus on basic constituents of cognitive control, such as value-based and perceptual decision making, top-down control of perception and attention, and reinforcement learning. Furthermore, we will discuss failures of control in neurological and psychiatric disorders and across development.
 
Theoretical aspects. Current theories and mathematically formalized computational models applied at various levels of abstraction will be presented and discussed in the light of experimental data.
 
Additional aspects. Where relevant, implications of theories, models and empirical findings for applied and clinical purposes will be discussed. Where necessary, experimental methods and analysis tools for studying cognitive control will be presented.