In this course we will survey principles and methods that feature importantly in contemporary cognitive neuroscience. It will be geared toward those who have minimal background in these topics, and who want to become better consumers of the literature and/or take other courses that assume some prior knowledge in this area. Our readings and discussion will reach from decades-old foundational papers to textbook chapters and review papers to some empirical papers.
Brad Postle, 515 Psychology, 262-4330, postle@wisc.edu.
Office hours by appointment.
With the exception of time-sensitive emergencies, email is the most effective and preferred way for you to contact me.
Format: Each week will be built around to a particular method, and across weeks some core themes will recur in the context of that week’s method. The format will be “informal lecture”, with questions, digressions, and discussions encouraged. To promote this, students are expected to have read all of each week's papers prior to class. Be forewarned that a disproportionate amount of the lecture material will be drawn from the professor’s own research, and from content areas with which he has the most experience.
Readings will be available on the course’s Learn@UW page
Grading will be based on in-class participation and a take-home final exam, which will be short-answer format.
October 24 - Introduction, neuroanatomy, overview
Reading: Excerpts from Kolb & Whishaw (2001). “An Introduction to Brain and Behavior”.
October 31 - Neuropsychology
Reading: Chapter 1 “The Development of Neuropsychology” from Kolb & Whishaw (2003). “Human Neuropsychology”.
November 7 - Lesion studies in nonhuman primates
Readings: Excerpts from Jacobsen, C.F. (1936). The functions of the frontal association areas in monkeys. Comparative Psychology Monographs, 13, 1-60.
Tsujimoto, S. and Postle, B.R. (in press). The prefrontal cortex and oculomotor delayed response: a reconsideration of the “mnemonic scotoma”. Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience.
November 14 - Extracellular electrophysiology
Reading: Awh, Armstrong, & Moore (2006) Visual and oculomotor selection: links, causes and implications for spatial attention. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 10, 124-130.
November 21 - Electroencephalography (EEG) and Event-related potentials (ERP)
Reading: Chapter 1 from Luck, S.J. (2005). “An Introduction to the Event-Related Potential Technique”.
November 28 - Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI): Physics, Physiology, Experimental Design
Readings: pp. 158-172 of Chapter 7, “Imaging the Brain’s Activity” from Kolb & Whishaw (2003). “Human Neuropsychology”.
G.K. Aguirre, M. D’Esposito, Experimental design for brain fMRI, in: C.T.W. Moonen, P.A. Bandettini Eds., Functional MRI, Springer Verlag, Berlin, 1999, pp. 369–380.
December 5 - fMRI: Activation- and information-based analyses
Reading: Kriegeskorte, N., Goebel, R., & Bandettini, P. (2006). Information-Based functional brain mapping. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 103(10), 3863-3868.
December 12 - Transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS)
Reading: Walsh & Rushworth (1999). A primer of magnetic stimulation as a tool for neuropsychology. Neuropsychologia, 37, 125-135.
December 23 - Final Exam Due
Where to take complaints about a Teaching Assistant or Course Instructor:
Occasionally, a student may have a complaint about a Teaching Assistant or course instructor. If that happens, you should feel free to discuss the matter directly with the TA or instructor. If the complaint is about the TA and you do not feel comfortable discussing it with him or her, you should discuss it with the course instructor. If you do not want to approach the instructor, make an appointment to speak to the Department Chair, Professor Patricia Devine: chair@psych.wisc.edu.
If your complaint has to do with sexual harassment, you may also take your complaint to Vicky Lenzlinger, Administrative Program Specialist, vlenzlinger@psych.wisc.edu. Her office is located on the second floor of the Psychology building, room 222.