Behavioral and Social Neuroscience

The types of problems we study range from determining how is it that people make simple choices, such as when deliberating between food options on a restaurant menu, include questions such as how it is we can learn from past trial and error behavior to make decisions in the future, what are the factors governing how we interact socially with others, up to establishing how financial markets operate and the factors influencing decision making in the political process.

The BSN option is a graduate option available at Caltech in which graduate students can gain the basic skills needed to be able to perform research in this interdiscplinary area, including exposure to core constructs in economics, psychology and computational neuroscience, and exerience with basic techniques such as computational modeling, functional neuroimaging and neuropsychological assessment.

Courses:

• Introduction to Computation and Neural Systems
• Learning Systems
• Introduction to Computer Graphics Laboratory
• Research in Computation and Neural Systems
• Neural Computation
• Research in Computation and Neural Systems
• Central Mechanisms in Perception

Applicants for Graduate Admissions to the option should have an undergraduate major in economics, pscyhology, biology, physics, mathematics, or computer science, and a general background that will permit enrolling in advanced courses in the other relevant disciplines. All applicants for admission, including those from foreign countries, are strongly urged to submit Graduate Record Examination test scores for verbal and quantitative aptitude tests and for an advanced test in physics, biology, engineering, mathematics, or computer science. Students are urged to apply for external fellowships.

No work experience is required.

Project Type: Predefined

Educational Form: Academic