Cognitive and Clinical Neuroscience

Cognitive and Clinical Neuroscience is nowadays established as a discipline that studies the relation between brain and behaviour in health and disease. To be able to understand our behaviour knowledge of brain processes are paramount, whilst these brain processes tell us little if studied in isolation, i.e. without knowledge about the behavioural result of these processes.

The same holds for when our behaviour goes astray or is impaired in some way through disease, trauma or disorder. Although not for all diseases or disorders neurobiological correlates have been identified in detail, amelioration of neurological problems may ameliorate the behavioural problems. Yet, instigated behavioural changes may also change the correlated brain functioning.

In this Minor the students will learn to appreciate the multidisciplinary nature of the field, by studying the central nervous system on different levels (from molecular to system level), through different approaches (from neurobiological to psychological) and in health and disease. It will cover the biological processes of our central nervous system, how on a network level these are responsible for our behaviour, and how these are related to disease and disorder.

At the end of this Minor the students will have gained knowledge and insight into neuroscientific experimentation, the biological basis of our perceptual processes, neurological diseases and disorders, and their treatment.

This Minor consists of four courses, all in semester 2 (period 3 and 4). One course provided by Psychology and one by Biomedical Sciences each block. The Minor starts with Advanced Neuroscience (BMS) and Sensation and Perception (Psychology) in block 3, mainly focusing on brain and behaviour in a healthy population. In block 4 this is followed by Central Nervous System Disorders (BMS) and Psychopharmacology (Psychology) dealing with clinical neuroscience.

The Minor programme, as a whole, is subject to a maximum number of 10 students per year.

Students at Utrecht University

For this Minor, please register by sending an email to the Education support office of Psychology (psychologie@uu.nl), stating your name, student number, telephone number and programme / faculty / university. The Education support office will then let you know if it’s possible to enrol for the Minor programme.