Cognitive Neuroscience
Track directors: Claire Sergent (Université Paris Cité) and Christelle Rochefort (Sorbonne Université)
Capacity: 20
General organization
The master’s student must register to one of the tracks. These tracks ensure the acquisition of genuine expertise in the concepts, methods, and techniques specific to each discipline, enhancing the clarity of skills associated with the diploma. The program establishes a common cultural foundation from the first year (M1) through a core curriculum and introductory courses to the different disciplines. In the second year (M2), the majority of courses are fully interdisciplinary and open to students from all tracks. Our goal is to cultivate cognitivists equipped with both robust disciplinary expertise and a broad interdisciplinary culture, essential elements for fostering meaningful collaboration across disciplines.
During the M2, all students will do a long internship during the 2nd semester. During the 1st semester, they will prepare for the internship. Spending one day in the lab (or a parent lab in the case of an internship outside Paris), they will work on the bibliography and clarify the research research question and forseen methods and statistical tests. At the end of 1st semester of M2, students will submit a preregistration document to their track directors, and present for 8 min in front of a jury at the end of January. This is crucial to learn more about the reproducibility crisis, and good practices to overcome it. At the end of the 2nd semester, students will submit a full report and present in front of an interdisciplinary jury the work they did during their internship.
Specific to this track
The central question addressed in the cog-SUP cognitive neuroscience track is the link between the biological activity of the nervous system and cognitive and mental activity. In addition to the master’s core curriculum, students in this track acquire a solid grasp of concepts and methods in experimental psychology, which is essential for experimentation in cognitive neuroscience, a solid grasp of concepts and methods in neuropsychology (the study of cognitive deficits in relation to neural lesions or pathologies), and advanced mastery of the full range of imaging and recording techniques used in cognitive neuroscience, from electrophysiology to functional MRI. The curriculum is primarily focused on human cognition but also provides an opportunity to explore approaches using animal models.
Beyond mastering the methods, the topics cover a very wide range of cognitive functions, encompassing their normal, pathological and developmental aspects. Students complete a research internship in the laboratory during both the first (M1) and second (M2) years of the program. In M1, the internship is carried out on a weekly basis (with a minimum of one day per week over one semester). In M2, it takes place throughout the entire second semester, enabling opportunities for internships abroad.
On completion of this program, students will be able to understand and interpret the scientific literature in cognitive neuroscience, carry out a literature review, develop an experimental protocol, acquire and analyze neuroimaging data and write a scientific article. These skills mainly pave the way for pursuing a PhD, but can also be put to good use in other career paths where a mastery of cognitive neuroscience and scientific methods are required (public administrations and companies or the private sector).
M1 internships
Topic: Internships must focus on an experimental neuroscience topic. Students are expected to engage with all stages of cognitive neuroscience research — from formulating the research question and designing the experiment to collecting, analyzing, and interpreting data.
Credits: 12–18 ECTS over one academic year (maximum of 12 ECTS per semester), corresponding to a total of 26–39 days in a research lab.
Evaluation: Students will submit a graphical abstract (250–300 words accompanied by one main figure) and give an oral presentation at the end of the second semester.
M1 – Semester 1
Master options: 3 to 6 ECTS among these options
CORE-1 Experimental approach (3 ECTS), Christophe Pallier
CORE-2 Data camp (3 ECTS), Christophe Pallier, Mehdi Khamassi
PROG-101 Introduction to programming (3 ECTS), Sylvain Charron
Track core curriculum
NEURO-301 Basic methods in Neuroimaging (3 ECTS), Laura Dugué
NEURO-302 Advanced methods in Neuroimaging (3 ECTS), Laura Dugué
NEURO-201 Neuropsychology as a central paradigm in cognitive science (3 ECTS), Lucie Rose, Paolo Bartolomeo, Laurent Cohen
Options: 6 to 9 ECTS among these options
LING-101 Introduction au Traitement Automatique des Langues (3 ECTS), Guillaume Wisniewski
PSYCH-101 Introduction to Cognitive Psychology (3 ECTS), Thérèse Collins
PHILO-101 Scientific reasoning (6 ECTS), Anouk Barberousse
NCIA-101 Introduction to Computational Neuroscience and AI (3 ECTS), Mehdi Khamassi, Benoît Girard
Options: 6 to 18 ECTS among these options
INT-101 Internship (1 day/week) (6 ECTS)
INT-102 Internship (0,5 day/week) (3 ECTS)
NEURO-101 Introduction to cognitive neuroscience (3 ECTS), Chloé Berland, Pierre Bourdillon
PSYCH-301 Methods in Psychological Science (3 ECTS), Thérèse Collins
LING-301 Machine Learning for Natural Language Processing: the fundamentals (6 ECTS), Marie Candito
NCIA-201 Bayesian Modeling of brain and behavior (3 ECTS), Jonathan Vacher, Jean Daunizeau
NCIA-202 Adaptive collective systems (3 ECTS), Nicolas Bredèche, Aurélie Beynier, Nicolas Maudet
NEURO-SU-1 Fundamentals in Neuroscience (3 ECTS), Régis Lambert, Stéphanie Daumas
INFO-SU-1 Logique et représentation des connaissances (6 ECTS), Nicolas Maudet, Gauvain Bourgne
M1 – Semester 2
Master core curriculum
CORE-3 Literature (Meta-)review (3 ECTS), Jonathan Vacher
CORE-4 Ethics in cognitive sciences (3 ECTS), Katie Evans, Anouk Barberousse, Raja Chatila
Master options: 3 to 6 ECTS among these options
CORE-1 Experimental approach (3 ECTS), Sylvain Charron
CORE-2 Data camp (3 ECTS), Christophe Pallier, Mehdi Khamassi
PROG-202Human experimental workshop (3 ECTS), Mark Wexler
Track core curriculum
INT-201 Internship (1 day/week) (6 ECTS)
Options: 12 to 15 ECTS among these options
INT-201 Internship (1 day/week) (6 ECTS)
NEURO-202 Advanced Cognitive Neuroscience (6 ECTS), Louise Kirsch
NEURO-203 Cognitive Neurophysiology (6 ECTS), Chloé Berland
NCIA-206 Model-based neuroimaging (3 ECTS), Laura Dugué
NEURO-SU-2 Neurophysiologie intégrative (6 ECTS), Gaël Orieux, Stéphane Charpier
NEURO-SU-3 Vieillissement cérébral (6 ECTS), Rachel Sherrard, Elise Morrice
NEURO-SU-4 Python avancé (6 ECTS), Hédi Soula
M2 – Semestre 3
Master core curriculum
INT-301 Internship preparation (1 day/week) (6 ECTS)
Options: 24 ECTS among these options
Attention (6 ECTS), Laura Dugué
Decision (6 ECTS), Mathias Pessiglione
COG-403 Cognitive neuroscience of consciousness (6 ECTS), Claire Sergent, Jérôme Sackur
COG-404 Social cognition (6 ECTS), Louise Kirsch, Klara Kovarski
COG-405 Computational psychiatry (6 ECTS), Fabien Vinckier, Philippe Domenech
PSYCH-203 Representations (6 ECTS), Thérèse Collins
PSYCH-204 Neuro-education: developmental psychology and neurosciences for education (6 ECTS), Elise Klein, Arnaud Cachia
iMOV-SU-2 Physiology of perception (6 ECTS), Olivier Marre, Grégory Gauvain
MSR-SU-1 Perception and action (3 ECTS), Emmanuel Guigon, Malika Auvray
BIP-SU-1 Cerveau social et émotions (6 ECTS), Jacqueline Nadel
Development of the nervous system (6 ECTS), Richard Belvindrah, Alexandra Redsam
BIP-SU-3 Neurobiology des Troubles Psychiatriques (6 ECTS), Philippe Fossati
BIP-SU-4 Bases Cérébrales des Fonctions Cognitives (6 ECTS), Katia Andrade, Richard Lévy, Laurent Cohen
Spatial Memory and Navigation (3 ECTS), Christelle Rochefort, Laure Rondi-Reig
PAS-1 Hearing: from mechanisms to restauration (6 ECTS), Brice Bathellier
M2 – Semestre 4
Master core curriculum
INT-401 Internship (full time) (30 ECTS)