Cognitive Neuroscience studies the cognitive and neural basis of mental processes such as perception, action, language, attention and memory. This relatively young discipline seeks to unravel the workings of the human brain.

The research Master’s programme offers four specialisations that coincide with the research themes of the Donders Institute.

Possible specialisations:

• Language and Communication: How do people understand a simple sentence? How do they recognise seperate words in running speech? The specialisation in Language and Communication studies the acquisition, understanding and production of language, and their biological underpinning.
• Perception, Action and Decision- making: How do people pick out their own glass of beer out of all the other glasses on a bar? How do they find their way in a building? This specialisation studies basic sensorimotor aspects as well as the cognitive, contextual and social components of perception-action coupling.
• Development and Lifelong Plasticity: How does your brain enable you to remember certain events? How does your brain adapt to certain changes? This specialisation studies the mechanistic underpinnings and behavioural consequences of long-term changes in neural structure and function.
• Natural Computing and Neurotechnology: This specialisation studies the interaction between and within groups of neurons, and with the outside world.