Psychology 618
Neuroscience and Behavior 618

Behavioral and Cognitive Neuroscience

Spring, 2017

email: psych618-kcave@courses.umass.edu

Monday & Wednesday 2:30 - 3:45 pm 520 Tobin Hall  lab: Thursday 3:00 pm - 5:00 pm 264 Integrated Sciences Bldg.

David Moorman office: 528 Tobin phone: 5-0663 Office hours: Wednesday 11:00-12:00 or by appointment

Kyle Cave office: 432 Tobin phone: 5-2787 Office hours: Tuesday 3:00-4:00 or by appointment

(This page last updated 13 Feb 2017.)

This course is an overview of systems neuroscience, with special emphasis on cognition, including perception, recognition, attention, and motor control. It includes both theoretical and lab components covering neuroanatomy, neurohistology, brain imaging, eyetracking, and behavioral analysis.

Learning Goals:

• To be exposed to and to understand many different aspects of systems-level neuroscience.
  
  
• To engage in an in-depth exploration of perception and attention, including both human and animal studies that use methods from behavioral measures to brain imagining and neural recordings.
  
  
• To become familiar with a range of different methods used to study cognition and neuroscience, including MRI, EEG, eyetracking, and histology.
  
  
• To learn about brain anatomy and organization through dissection.
  
  
• To discuss complex issues in an open forum with those who have different backgrounds and experience.
  
  
• To assess theories of cognition and brain function by integrating evidence from different sources using different experimental methods.
  
  
• To draw firm conclusions based on evidence and to express those conclusions clearly in writing.
  
  
• To understand how studies in neuroscience and cognition can contribute to society.
  
  

Readings:

The readings for the new class will be a combination of the textbook Principles of Neural Science, Fifth Edition, by Kandel et al. (published by McGraw-Hill), and a collection of journal articles and book chapters. Reading assignments for each class are listed on Moodle. Please be sure to do the assigned reading before each class.

For the lab, we also recommend The Sheep Brain: A Photographic Series, Second Edition, by Vanderwolf and Cooley, ISBN: 0-920700-03-9. Students will work on the lab in pairs, and each pair will need one copy of this guide, so you may want to find a lab partner from among the other students in the class and split the cost.

Both books are available from Amazon.

Lab

The course will include a lab section that will meet Thursdays from 3:00 to 5:00. 10% of your final grade will be based on your work in the labs. Below are the lab sessions thathave been scheduled so far.

Communicating Outside of Class:

This syllabus is available as a web page at the address at the bottom of the page. There is also a Moodle site for turning in papers and accessing readings and grades. You must be registered in the class to access the Moodle site.

The best way to contact us is through e-mail, using the address at the top of this syllabus, or to come by during office hours. You can also phone at the numbers above.

Exams:

	Read this carefully. Ask me if there is any part you do not understand.
	There will be at least three exams during the semester and a final exam at the end.
	The exams will cover both material from class and material from the reading.
	Each exam may cover all the material that has been presented up to that point, including material that may have been on previous exams.
	Some or all of the exams will be take-home exams. For each take-home exam, you will download the questions on Moodle, and after writing your answers, you will upload them through TurnItIn on the Moodle site. You can consult written sources as you work on the exam, but you cannot communicate with anyone else about the exam material while you are working on it.

Assignments:

There may be various assignments throughout the class. They could include your written thoughts and questions about one of the readings or a class discussion, other short written assignments, and perhaps an occasional short quiz. We may encourage you to discuss these assignments with other students (except, of course, the quizzes). However, unless we specifically say otherwise, the work you turn in for the assignments must be entirely your own.

Avoiding Plagiarism:

All students are expected to adhere scrupulously to the University policy concerning academic honesty.  If you fail to follow these rules, you could receive a failing grade for the class and be reported to the Academic Honesty Office. For more information on the University's academic honesty policy, check this web site:

http://www.umass.edu/honesty/

Also, this website from Indiana University provides examples to help you understand how to avoid plagiarism.

Disabilities:

If you need special accommodations because of a documented disability, please get the official notification to us by Feb 6.

Web Resources:

Click here for a list of websites with material on Cognition, Neuroscience, and Cognitive Neurosience.

An updated version of syllabus is available on the World Wide Web at: http://courses.umass.edu/psych618-kcave/

Psych 618 and NSB 618 David Moorman Kyle Cave Dept. of Psych and Brain Sciences NSB Program U. Mass.