Prospectus | 08/09 - Psychology and Neuroscience - Maastricht ...

Chapter 2 - Specialization Cognitive Neuroscience
perception and systems that control our muscles. In other words, most of the things we
do require sensorimotor integration. In this course we will study a couple of important
aspects of sensorimotor integration in the brain, particularly in the context of visual
perception. Since sensory perception (visual as well as auditory) is covered extensively
in other courses, we will focus mainly on the motor system and the transformation and
processing of sensory information to serve motor control. We start with basic processes
such as: types of motor control (since visual perception takes a little time, how should
you use past information to control future actions?), the representations used by
primary and secondary motor areas (what is the parameter that is under ultimate
control: muscle contractions, joint angles, or whole movements?) and coordinate
transformations (how do you get from visual information, coded relative to the point
you are looking at, to motor commands that are coded relative to your body or the
object you are grasping?). Later, we will focus on higher level issues such as motor
learning, predicting the actions of others, and reacting to errors in performance. All
topics will be discussed in the context of cognitive neuroscience research to learn how
these topics can be investigated both with classical behavioural experiments as also
with modern techniques such as functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging.
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Literature
Journal articles and book chapters.
Instructional Approach
Tutorial group meetings, lectures
Form of Assessment
Written exam with open questions.
| 415CN Advanced fMRI – 3 credits
Coordinator: Rainer Goebel, Cognitive Neuroscience (FPN), Phone 38 84014,
40 Universiteitssingel East, Room 4.753, E-mail: r.goebel@psychology.unimaas.nl
Building on the course ‘Neuroimaging’, this course will examine advanced topics of fMRI
methodology and applications. In the first week, models of the BOLD response and its
relation to neural activity will be discussed. In the second week, details of deconvolution
analysis for rapid event-related paradigms will be presented. Furthermore, procedures
to optimize stimulus presentation will be presented followed by a discussion about
limitations of rapid event-related designs. In the third week, principles of real-time fMRI
will be presented followed by an overview of fMRI neurofeedback studies. In addition,
machine learning techniques for the real-time decoding of mental states will be
discussed. In the fourth week, advanced methods to establish correspondence between
brains of different subjects are examined. The importance of brain normalization for
random-effects statistical analysis, creation of probabilistic atlases and meta-analyses
will be discussed. In the context of high-resolution fMRI, an integrated view of the
addressed advanced topics will be finally presented.