Unit COGNITIVE ASSESSMENT THROUGH NEUORIMAGING

Course
Assessment of individual functioning in clinical and health psychology
Study-unit Code
A001974
Curriculum
Curriculum ii
Teacher
Valerio Santangelo
Teachers
  • Valerio Santangelo
Hours
  • 54 ore - Valerio Santangelo
CFU
6
Course Regulation
Coorte 2022
Offered
2022/23
Learning activities
Caratterizzante
Area
Psicologia generale e fisiologica
Academic discipline
M-PSI/01
Type of study-unit
Obbligatorio (Required)
Type of learning activities
Attività formativa monodisciplinare
Language of instruction
Italian
Contents
The course aimed to provide students with the theoretical and methodological bases of neuroimaging, to make them more independent in acquiring information and skills through the study of the neuroimaging international literature on normal and pathological cognitive functioning. The first part of the course will focus on the fundamentals of neuroimaging, whereas in the second part the acquired knowledge will be used to understand recent neuroimaging literature both on normal and pathological cognitive functioning.
Reference texts
Senior C., Russell T., Gazzaniga M., eds., 2006. Methods in Mind. MIT press.
Educational objectives
By the end of the course students should be independent in acquiring new information and skills through the study of the neroimaging international literature on cognitive functioning. Students will have to critically understand current research using neuroimaging techniques.

Contextually, students will have to demonstrate knowledge on the following issues: theoretical and methodological foundations of neuroimaging techniques; principal neuroimaging techniques, their specificities and fields of application; potentials and constrains in the use of neuroimaging.

Student will also have to be capable of developing experimental designs for studies employing neuroimaging techniques and to implement adequate statistical data analysis procedures.
Prerequisites
Knowledge of general and cognitive psychology; anatomo-physiological bases of cerebral functioning; methodological bases of cognitive sciences and cognitive neurosciences; basic knowledge of statistics.
Teaching methods
Frontal lectures.
Learning verification modality
Written exam based on three tests to be carried out within one hour and a half:

1) a quiz including 15 multiple choice questions (1 correct response out of 4 alternative choices; 1 point for each correct answer and 0 point for no response/incorrect answers). The test will assess knowledge on theoretical and methodological bases of neuroimaging, as well as the capability of the students to implement the correct experimental procedure and data analysis protocol for neuroimaging data. The student will need to score at least 9 out of 15 points to advance to the next tests.

2) A open question, scoring range between 0 and 5, aiming at assessing the student's capability to correctly apply neuroimaging methodology.

3) Writing of an abstract (a 250 words synopsis) of a research paper (in english) taken from an international journal based on neuroimaging techniques. The abstract, with a scoring range between 0 and 10, will allow to evaluate students’ capacity of apply acquired knowledge during the course on theoretical and methodological neuroimaging bases to understand current intenational literature.

Deadline for registration: 48 hours before the exam. Students must register online at the link: https://unipg.esse3.cineca.it/Home.do

In case a student intends to anticipate his/her exam in a year preceding the one it is scheduled in his/her curriculum, it is recommended to anticipate as well the attendance of the lessons and to schedule the exam in the first useful session after the lessons have been concluded.
Extended program
The aim of the course is to provide students with the theoretical and methodological bases of neuroimmaging to make them more independent in acquiring information and skills through the study of the neuroimaging international literature on normal and pathological cognitive functioning. The course will be divided in two parts:

1) neuroimaging foundations:
- theoretical foundations: functional specialization and functional integration; forward inferences and reverse inferences; subtractive approach and covariance approach;
- methodological foundations: univariate statistical approaches (GLM) for activation studies; multivariate statistical approaches for connectivity studies; functional connectivity; effective connectivity; classifiers based on patterns of brain activity;
- where can neuroimaging be used: basic research in cognitive psychology; pre-clinical research in neurology and psychiatry; clinical trials in neurology and psychiatry; clinical routine; studies on cerebral plasticity; forensic and economic settings;
- usage precautions: theoretical, methodological and technical constrains; be careful of “neuromania”; the risks of mass-media popularization.

2) application of the acquired knowledge in understanding neuroimaging literature.

With the theoretical and methodological expertise gained during the first part of the course, students will be guided to an in-depth analysis of the most relevant empirical contributions of the interantional literature examining normal and pathological cognitive functioning using neuroimaging techniques.
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