Course Syllabus

Neurosciences Cognitive Core Module

Spring Quarter 2021

Instructors: Russell Poldrack and Justin Gardner

Email: russpold@stanford.edu/jlg@stanford.edu

Office Location: Building 420 Room 314 (RP)/300 (JLG)

TA: Akshay Jagadeesh (akshayj@stanford.edu)

Location

Course meetings will be via zoom (links are in menu at left). Scanning will be conducted at the Center for Neurobiological Imaging: Basement of Psychology Department, Building 420

Overview of the course:

The goal of this module is to provide you with a hands-on introduction to cognitive neuroscience research.  Rather than trying to give a broad overview of this area of research (which would be impossible in three weeks), instead we will do a deep-dive into a specific area (attention, working memory, reinforcement learning), showing you the entire process from conceptualizing a study to collecting and analyzing fMRI data.  

Assignments:

There will be reading assignments posted with brief written components due one hour before classes to facilitate discussion. The main goal will be to develop, run, analyze and interpret an experiment in small groups. You will first read a classic monkey physiology paper about your chosen topic (attention, working memory or reinforcement learning) and lead discussion (figure by figure) in class during the first week. With a combination of assignments and in class activities you will work with your group to translate that monkey physiology paper into a human neuroscience experiment using BOLD imaging. Each group will be responsible for presenting their findings at the end of the third week. To connect to modern literature each group will also be responsible for choosing and presenting a paper in the third week. Groups are expected to work together on both the experiment and the paper, however, half the group will be primarily responsible for presenting the paper and the other half the results of the experiment.

Learning goals:

You will be able to...

• ...take an idea for a human cognitive neuroscience experiment through design, acquisition, analysis and interpretation
• ...critically evaluate cognitive neuroscience research based on your experience running an experiment

Pre-reading: Before the core, please take a look at: 

Poldrack RA, Farah MJ (2015) Progress and challenges in probing the human brain. Nature 526:371–379. 

Also, take a look at the following, very basic, introductory textbook: The Student’s Guide to Cognitive Neuroscience, Jamie Ward, Psychology Press, ISBN: 978-1-84872-272-9. Take a look at least at Chapters 4 (The imaged brain), 7 (The attending brain), 9 (The remembering brain). If you do not have immediate familiarity with this level of content from your undergraduate training, then you will want to read carefully to get up to speed before the module.

Grading:

 Will be based in equal parts upon written assignments, class participation, group project and presentation.

Course Schedule: 

Experiment group:

Sign up here: https://tinyurl.com/y3r46ojm

Students with Documented Disabilities

Students who may need an academic accommodation based on the impact of a disability must initiate the request with the Office of Accessible Education (OAE).  Professional staff will evaluate the request with required documentation, recommend reasonable accommodations, and prepare an Accommodation Letter for faculty dated in the current quarter in which the request is being made. Students should contact the OAE as soon as possible since timely notice is needed to coordinate accommodations.  The OAE is located at 563 Salvatierra Walk (phone: 723-1066, URL: http://oae.stanford.edu). 

Honor code

We will abide by the Stanford University Honor code. Please familiarize yourself with it.