Fall 2025
Permission forms will be accepted for Fall 2025 courses beginning on April 18, 2025. Note that all the PSYC courses listed below are accepted towards the Psychology major, but only some are accepted towards the Neuroscience major.
In 25F at 2A, Jim Haxby
This course is designed to introduce students to the theoretical and practical issues involved in conducting functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) experiments of cognitive and behaviorally-related brain activity. Participants will gain an understanding of the physiological principles underlying the fMRI signal change, as well as the considerations for experimental design. The course will include firsthand exposure to the scanning environment and data collection procedures. Participants will be provided conceptual and hands-on experience with image processing and statistical analysis. At the completion of this course, it is expected that participants will be prepared to critique, design and conduct fMRI studies; appreciate limitations and potentials of current fMRI methods and techniques; and better understand the broad range of expertise required in an fMRI research program. The course is designed to provide the participant with intensive, hands-on instruction. As a result, enrollment in the course will be limited to 12 people. Knowledge of MR physics, signal processing, or the UNIX/Linux operating system is not a prerequisite.
Approved course for the Neuroscience major/minor.
Prerequisite: Instructor permission through the department website.
In 25F at 9L, Ann Clark
In 1995, about 56% of adults in the U.S. were overweight or obese. Thirty years later, that number has risen to over 70%. Despite major advances in our scientific understanding of obesity during this time, many questions remain unanswered. Recently, new anti-obesity medications have gained attention. Students in this course will examine, through the lens of neuroscience, how obesity research—its successes, failures, and ongoing challenges—informs prevention, clinical treatment, and long-term management of obesity.
Approved course for the Neuroscience major/minor.
Prerequisite: PSYC 6 and one of the following: PSYC 37 or PSYC 45 (recommended), instructor may waive PSYC 37/45 for qualified students; and instructor permission via the department website.
In 25F at 10A, Tor Wager
What does the mind have to do with physical health? In this course, we explore the idea that the mind and brain influence physiological processes related to mental and physical health alike. How we conceptualize ourselves and our place in the world sets the stage for how we interpret life events and make decisions. This conceptualization also governs how our bodies respond to stressors and other environmental conditions.
Approved course for the Neuroscience major/minor.
Prerequisite: PSYC 1 or PSYC 6, at least four additional psychology or neuroscience courses, and instructor permission through the department website.
In 25F at 10A, James Haxby
Natural human experience involves a continuous stream of incoming stimuli in a rich context of prior knowledge and expectations. Traditionally, experimental psychology attempts to reduce this complexity using controlled experiments that vary a single, experimental variable and hold other, control variables constant. Human cognition, however, develops to extract information and guide behavior based on uncontrolled, naturalistic stimuli in an ecologically rich environment. In this seminar we will examine a new approach to experimental cognitive research that uses uncontrolled, naturalistic stimuli and discovers structure and meaning in the brain activity and behavioral responses they evoke using advanced computational methods from machine learning and big data analysis. We will discuss the advantages of this new approach for studying complex and ecological cognition and the limitations of the current state-of-the-art. Throughout the course we will consider future directions and challenges for extending this approach into new domains of cognition, developing richer naturalistic stimulation paradigms, and developing more powerful methods for discovering the structure of information in real world events and environments.
Approved course for the Neuroscience major/minor.
Prerequisite: Permission of instructor. Background in psychological and brain imaging research methods, computer science, and machine learning will be helpful, but students need not have background in all of these areas.
- See Independent Research for more info on PSYC 70 (Neuroscience Research), PSYC 88 (Independent Psychology Research), and PSYC 90 (Independent Neuroscience Research).
- See Psychology Honors for more info on PSYC 89 (Honors Psychology Research)
- See Neuroscience Honors for more info on PSYC 91 (Honors Neuroscience Research)
- See Psychology Thesis for more info on PSYC 92 (Psychology Thesis Research)
- See Neuroscience Thesis for more info on PSYC 93 (Neuroscience Thesis Research)