Enrollment year
2022/2023
Academic discipline
M-PSI/02 (PSYCHOBIOLOGY AND PHYSIOLOGICAL PSYCHOLOGY)
Department
DEPARTMENT OF BRAIN AND BEHAVIORAL SCIENCES
Curriculum
PERCORSO COMUNE
Period
1st semester (26/09/2022 - 13/01/2023)
Lesson hours
54 lesson hours
Activity type
WRITTEN TEST
Prerequisites
Basic notions of physiological psychology, neuropsychology, and experimental psychology
Learning outcomes
To provide a set of examples of neuropsychological inferences on the structure of the normal mind, and a view on the most recent methodological debates in this field of research. Active participation by students to class discussion is encouraged all throughout the course, which, if possible, will also contain seminars by neuroscientists (colleagues of the teacher).
Course contents
Aim: to provide an overview of Cognitive Neuropsychology, the research field which infers mental structure from the performance of brain damaged patients. A number of scientific papers will be discussed from a theoretical-methodological point of view, trying to highlight both strengths and weaknesses of them. If possible, some of these papers will be presented by their authors (neuroscientists). Instances will be provided regarding the various phases of development of a neuropsychological research program, with special attention to "crucial" experiments in the history of some of them.
The main topics will be:
Disorders of representation of space and of its metrics (visuo-spatial neglect, optic ataxia, anisometry);
Disorders of awareness of visual stimuli (blindsight);
Disorders following damage to the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex;
Recent neuroscientific theories of consciousness;
The methodological principles underlying neuropsychological research, with special attention for single and double dissociations, neural stimulation techniques (TMS, tDCS), neuroimaging (fMRI).
The main purpose of these lectures is to provide the student with a critical attitude towards neuropsychological scientific work, and at the same time, to illustrate some of the most curious and surprising phenomena scientific research has happened to come across.
Teaching methods
Official guidelines of the University will be followed.
Reccomended or required readings
The exam requires a written report on the content of the lectures. Further details will be provided on the first lecture.
Assessment methods
Written exam.
Conditions vary very quickly to the COVID19 outbreaks, so check for modality changes (online/presence) frequently.
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