Program overview
“Mind and Brain” is an interdisciplinary cognitive neuroscience program that addresses the intersection between cognitive and clinical neuroscience, cognition research, psychology, computer science and philosophy. Our primary focus is on research questions that benefit considerably from comparing the viewpoints and approaches of different theoretical and empirical fields.
“Mind and Brain” has two study tracks. The Brain Track is targeted towards students with an empirical background in neuroscience, psychology, cognitive science or medicine who are interested in complementing their empirical work with more theoretical and philosophical approaches in order to provide a more enriched understanding of the human mind. The Mind Track is for students with a theoretical or philosophical background who would like to complement their approaches with an understanding of empirical research on the link between mind and brain. This will help clarify how empirical research can augment their theoretical approaches and also allow them to judge the robustness and validity of empirical research. The Brain Track and Mind Track students will take many classes together.
This interdisciplinary training will provide students from both tracks with deeper insights into several important topics that lie at the heart of cognitive neuroscience: This includes the body-mind-problem, consciousness, emotions, decision making, intelligence and free will.
As a research-oriented master’s program “Mind and Brain” prepares students both for a career in research / academia and in application fields such as data science. Please note that neither of the two “Mind and Brain” tracks is a classical psychology program. Clinical neuroscience is only a small part of the curriculum and the program does not prepare students who aim to work in psychotherapy.
