Core courses (recurrent, every year)

Course 1: Neuroanatomy and Neurophysiology
Course 2: Neuroimaging
Course 3: Cognitive Neuroscience
Course 4: Basic Philosophical Concepts and Philosophy of Mind

Supplementary courses (alternate, every two years)

Course 5: Computational Neuroscience & Statistics
Course 6: Cognitive Science
Course 7a: Lifespan and Plasticity
Course 7b: Clinical Neuroscience
Course 8a: Ethics and Neuroscience
Course 8b: Language and the Brain

Content of courses

Course description:
The course provides a basic understanding of where (anatomy) in the brain what (physiology) happens. It is of particular value for those students whose background is mainly in a “mind” science such as linguistics, philosophy, or economics.

Qualification aims:
Participating students will learn about the fundamental units of brain anatomy, such as lobes, areas, columns, etc. A special emphasis will be put on structure function relationship, i.e., which brain area is responsible for which aspect of brain function. It will be explained how brain areas interact, and what theories exist about bringing together aspects of information from different brain areas into one percept or thought (binding). The physiology part of the course will address fundamentals of neuronal functioning, interaction of neurons, neurotransmission, and will provide an understanding of neurovascular coupling, a basis of the most important functional neuroimaging method, fMRI.

Course components:
This course intends to provide basic knowledge about brain structure (anatomy) and function (physiology).
This comprises:
(a) Labelling of brain lobes, cytoarchitectonically defined brain areas, microscopical cortical architecture, structure–function relationship of brain areas,
(b) Function of neuron, groups of neurons, neuronal networks. Role of neurotransmitters, anatomical distribution of neurotransmitter. Neurovascular coupling as basis of functional magnetic resonance imaging.

This course addresses the following Mind and Brain research topics:
Topic 1: Conscious and unconscious perception
Topic 2: Decision-making
Topic 3: Language
Topic 4: Brain plasticity and lifespan ontogeny
Topic 5: Brain disorders and mental dysfunction

Course description:
The course provides an introduction to a number of key non-invasive research methods in structural and functional neuroimaging.

Qualification aims:
Participating students will learn about the basics of functional MRI, EEG, MEG and TMS including technological and physiological foundations, experimental design and basic and advanced statistical methods. The goal is to provide an understanding of functional neuroimaging that will allow students to design, perform and analyse their own studies.

Course components:
− MRI: MRI physics, technology and sequences
− MRI: MRI-safety
− MRI: Neurovascular coupling and the BOLD-response
− MRI: Preprocessing of fMRI data
− MRI: Statistical modelling and hypothesis testing (GLM)
− MRI: Connectivity analyses (PPI, DCM, Granger causality)
− MRI: Multivariate methods (ICA, clustering, pattern classification)
− EEG/MEG: Technical, physiological and bioelectric/biomagnetic principles
− EEG/MEG: Evoked potentials
− EEG/MEG: Spectral analyses
− TMS

This course addresses the following Mind and Brain research topics:
Topic 1: Conscious and unconscious perception
Topic 2: Decision-making
Topic 3: Language
Topic 4: Brain plasticity and lifespan ontogeny
Topic 5: Brain disorders and mental dysfunction

Course description:
The course provides an introduction to the field of cognitive neuroscience where the focus is on the neural basis of cognitive and emotional processing in the intact human brain.

Course content:
(a) The field of cognitive neuroscience,
(b) How neuroscientific methods can be used to study the neural basis of cognitive processes.
The course comprises lectures and discussions.

Course components:
− Sensory processing (in particular visual perception)
− Attention
− Learning and memory
− Decision-making
− Executive functions
− Motor behaviour
− Emotion
− Cerebral lateralisation

This course addresses the following Mind and Brain research topics:
Topic 1: Conscious and unconscious perception
Topic 2: Decision-making

Course description:
The course provides a systematic overview over the most central issues in the philosophy of mind.

Qualification aims:
Participating students will learn to apply relevant philosophical concepts, they will be taught to construct a valid argument; they will learn how to distinguish between the most important options in the mind–body debate and how to assess the consequences of neuroscientific research.

Course content:
This course intends to provide basic knowledge about basic philosophical issues and basic questions in the philosophy of mind.

Course components:
Part I: Basic philosophical concepts: knowledge, explanation, argument, or causation.
Part II: Basic problems: interactive dualism, epiphenomenalism, eliminative materialism, identity theory.
Part III: Specific issues: self-consciousness, explanatory gap, emergence, reduction, free will.

This course addresses the following Mind and Brain research topics:
Topic 1: Conscious and unconscious perception
Topic 2: Decision-making
Topic 3: Language
Philosophy

Course description:
The course provides an introduction to selected basic concepts of computational neuroscience.

Qualification aims:
The participating students will get to know examples of models on several levels of abstraction, from single cells to large networks. The main goal is to teach specific fundamental computational principles that are often encountered in cortical processing.

Course content:
This course intends to provide basic knowledge about computational models of single cells, small networks, and large scale networks, including some aspects of learning and neural coding. In addition, some basic aspects of statistics as often used in Neuroscience will be taught.

The course comprises:
(a) Models of single cells (rate models, integrate and fire, membranes)
(b) Models of networks (Hopfield, Perceptron, Winner Take All)
(c) Hebbian learning, supervised learning (error backpropagation)
(d) Statistics: Hypothesis testing, regression, model fitting, t-Test, _X²-Test, ANOVA

This course relates to the following Mind and Brain research topics:
Topic 1: Conscious and unconscious perception
Topic 2: Decision-making
Topic 3: Language
Topic 4: Brain plasticity and lifespan ontogeny
Topic 5: Brain disorders and mental dysfunction

Course description:
The course provides an introduction to the key concepts and debates in cognitive science. The focus will be on the core assumptions behind the fields that compose cognitive science. Participating students will learn to relate these issues to their own field of study and research topic.

Course content:
(a) Foundations of cognitive science.
(b) Cognitive psychology.
(c) Artificial intelligence.
(d) Linguistics, language, and its evolution.

Course components:
− Overview of cognitive science and its assumptions.
− Computational theory of mind
− What is computation?
− Levels of description in cognitive science.
− The role of modeling in cognitive science.
− Functional and evolutionary approaches.  
− Controversies: reasoning, rationality, and human behavior.
− Understanding by building: Artificial Intelligence.
− Controversies: language. Is it an instinct?
− The evolution of language.

This course addresses the following Mind and Brain research topics:
Topic 1: Conscious and unconscious perception
Topic 2: Decision-making
Topic 3: Language

Course description:
The course provides information about changes in mental function and brain structure/function during lifespan and in disorders which affect the brain either so called neurological disorders (stroke, tumour) or psychiatric diseases (schizophrenia, depression)

Qualification aims:
Participating students will learn basics of cognitive changes during lifespan and changes in brain structure during the same period. Students will also learn basics of pathophysiology of important disorders of the brain and they will learn ways how the brain reacts to these challenges.

Course content:
This course intends to provide basic knowledge about
(a) lifespan / plasticity,
(b) mental dysfunction and brain disorders.

Course components:
(a) Lifespan and plasticity
− Cognitive function at different ages, normal development, deviations from normal development. Successful aging.
− Development of the brain from birth to old age. Differential development of certain brain areas. Differential involvement of brain areas in aging process.

(b) Mental dysfunction and brain disorder
− Psychopathology / neurological symptoms of important diseases: schizophrenia, depression, stroke, Parkinson’s disease
− Pathophysiological processes underlying these disorders, e.g. the role of the dopaminergic system, seronergica system, hormesis, etc.

This course addresses the following Mind and Brain research topics:
Topic 4: Brain plasticity and lifespan ontogeny
Topic 5: Brain disorders and mental dysfunction

Course description:
The course provides basic knowledge about lifespan and plasticity research and exemplary insights in the neuroscience of clinical psychiatry and neurology.
Participating students will learn how alterations of different cognitive systems result in psychiatric and neurological disorders, e.g., dementia.

This course intends to demonstrate:
(a) how alterations of different cognitive systems (e.g., emotion regulation, attention, reward), result in mental disorders,
(b) how these alterations can be studied using neuroscience methods,
(c) how this knowledge may translate into therapeutic applications.

The course comprises:
− lectures
− literature discussion
− patient interviews
− film presentations
− group work
− presentations by students working in the field of clinical neuroscience
− visit to a TMS lab

Course components:
− Physiological and pathological ageing
− Cerebrovascular system and stroke
− Cognitive Neurology I: Perception, agnosia and related disorders
− Cognitive Neurology II: Language, aphasia and frontal lobe disorders
− Epilepsy
− Coma and brain death
− Motor system and movement disorders
− Sensory system and pain
− Emotion regulation and affective disorders
− Dopamine, glutamate, and schizophrenia
− Reward system and substance abuse
− Personality and personality disorders
− Sleep
− Fear/arousal system and anxiety disorders
− Attention, activity and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder

This course addresses the following Mind and Brain research topics:
Topic 4: Brain plasticity and lifespan ontogeny
Topic 5: Brain disorders and mental dysfunction

Course description:
Participants will be familiarized with basic ethical concepts and theories and will gain an overview of ethically-relevant aspects of neuroscience. Thereby, participants will learn to know how ethical issues are tackled in philosophical ethics, and they will get an overall view of the theoretical interfaces between ethics and neuroscience.

Course content:
The course provides an introduction to central notions and theories discussed in philosophical ethics and an overview of ethical issues in neuroscience as well as of consequences neuroscience does or might have for ethics.

Course components:
(a) Ethics: basic concepts and foundational issues: metaethics vs. normative ethics, consequentialism, deontology, moral responsibility.
(b) Ethical issues in neuroscience (“ethics of neuroscience”)
(c) Ethical implications of neuroscience (“neuroscience of ethics”).

This course addresses the following Mind and Brain research topics:
Topic 2: Decision-making
Topic 5: Brain disorders and mental dysfunction
Philosophy

Course description:
The course provides a road map to basic theoretical concepts of the structure and processing of language and their cognitive and neurological correlates. Participants will be familiarized with current research questions in the field of language and the brain and the appropriate methods and paradigms to address these questions.

Course content:
This course intends to provide basic knowledge about the levels of the description of language structure and the cognitive representation and neural implementation of language processing.

This entails:
(a) The nature of sounds, the structure of sentences, and semantic interpretation,
(b) The nature and acquisition of linguistic knowledge, its use, neural representation, and disorders.
 
Course components:
(a) Language structure
− Sounds and words
− Basic sentence structure
− Structure of complex sentences
− Meaning
(b) Cognition and neurology of language
− The mental lexicon
− Acquisition
− Production
− Comprehension

This course addresses the following Mind and Brain research topic:
Topic 3: Language