Neuroscience of Behaviour & Cognition A (NEUR90013)

This subject is an intensive 5 consecutive day overview of the range of research methodologies used to understand how different structures, chemicals and neural response within the brain work together to achieve complex behaviour and cognitive functions. Through exposure to a selection of current research topics and available experimental methodologies the subject explains how the interplay between clinical populations’ studies, healthy subjects’ studies combined with animal models of behaviour contribute to advances in the field. The multi-disciplinary nature of this fast-developing field is emphasised through the various collaborations between the presenters from disciplines spanning Biomedical and Health Sciences, Psychology and Electrical Engineering. Seven themes are discussed as follows:

1. Behaviour measures in healthy populations: Uncovering mechanisms underlying perception and behaviour.
2. Clinical brain lesion populations: Providing insights into anatomic regions involved in cognition.
3. Computational modelling: Understanding the auditory system to create artificial hearing devices.
4. Rodent models: Understanding the genetic, physiological and pharmacological factors underlying human cognition and behaviour.
5. Human electrophysiology: Explore the neural dynamics of perception.
6. Neuropharmacology: How neurotransmitters modulate brain function.

A group project will focus on reward-encoding to demonstrate how an interdisciplinary approach played a critical role in informing our current understanding of how the brain processes reward. This example will also illustrate how a single element of brain function can have a vast array of consequence ranging from complex patterns of global economic behaviour through to clinical symptoms of addiction. Students are split into multi-disciplinary groups to analyse a set paper, each representing a different investigative technique for the same problem. Class presentations at the end of week allow each group to discuss their conclusions and share a class discussion illustrating the points outlined above.