MSc Neuroimaging for Clinical & Cognitive Neuroscience / Course details

Year of entry: 2024

Course description

Our MSc in Neuroimaging for Clinical and Cognitive Neuroscience will provide you with the theoretical and practical skills required to carry out high-quality cognitive brain imaging work in healthy individuals and patient populations.

Our course is aimed at graduates with scientific training in fields as diverse as experimental psychology, cognitive neuroscience, neuroscience, physics, computer science, mathematics, medicine, pharmacology, and engineering who are interested in a career where brain imaging forms a major focus, or where the scientific and technological needs of brain imaging are addressed.

The course aims to provide a unique environment in which students from a variety of scientific backgrounds can work together in a way that reflects their potential future collaborations, and in which they can readily acquire the multidisciplinary skills needed.

You will explore issues relating to the optimisation of fMRI and EEG data acquisition and analysis, with a particular focus on the cross-talk between the physics of the scanning environment, the psychology of the experimental design, and the neuroanatomy and neurophysiology of the human brain.

In addition, the course offers an in-depth grounding in cognitive, social, behavioural, and clinical neuroscience theory, and offers the opportunity to be directly involved in neuroimaging research.

Graduating students will be ideally placed to make major contributions to research and technological development within the field of brain imaging.

PhD with integrated master's

If you're planning to undertake a PhD after your master's, our Integrated PhD programme will enable you to combine your postgraduate taught course with a related PhD project in biology, medicine or health.

You can also visit this page for examples of projects related to integrated master's courses.

Special features

MSc + PhD studentships

Our MSc can form the first year of Research Council-funded 1+3 postgraduate PhD studentships (such as from the ESRC Northwest Doctoral Training Centre ).

Teaching and learning

Our course is delivered through a series of lectures and practical lab-based classes, as well as informal seminar-style sessions encouraging interaction and discussion.

The research project offers one-to-one supervision within the research environment.

Apart from doing standard background reading and preparation for coursework and examinations, you will be required to work on lab-based skills outside formal teaching times. Dedicated facilities will be available for this.

Coursework and assessment

Assessment will vary between course units, but will comprise a mixture of examinations (including short and long answer formats), coursework, lab reports and a final research report.

Course unit details

You will take eight taught course units worth 15 credits each and complete a research project.

Semester 1:

  • Neuroimaging Techniques (including MRI, fMRI, PET, EEG, MEG)
  • Functional and Computational Neuroanatomy (unit name is subject to approval)
  • Image Analysis
  • Experiment Design and Optimisation

Semester 2:

  • Advanced Image Analysis
  • Cognitive Psychology for Clinical Neuroscience
  • Cognitive and Social Neuroscience
  • Clinical and Behavioural Neuroscience

Research projects

For the research project, you will join an active neuroimaging research programme from across the University. A wide variety of research options will be made available in the hope that the experience reflects the research environment that you might enter once you have graduated.

All students will be required to carry out a major component of neuroimaging data analysis and interpretation of results as part of the project. Project results will be presented in poster format at a mini-conference towards the end of the course.

Course unit list

The course unit details given below are subject to change, and are the latest example of the curriculum available on this course of study.

TitleCodeCredit ratingMandatory/optional
Advanced PET and MRI IIDS67432 15 Mandatory
Neuroimaging Techniques PCHN62101 15 Mandatory
Cognitive Psychology for Clinical Neurosciences PCHN62112 15 Mandatory
Image Analysis PCHN62121 15 Mandatory
Experimental Design and Optimisation PCHN62131 15 Mandatory
Functional Neuroanatomy PCHN62141 15 Mandatory
Advanced Image Analysis PCHN62152 15 Mandatory
Cognitive and Social Neuroscience PCHN62162 15 Mandatory
Clinical and Behavioural Neuroscience PCHN62172 15 Mandatory
Research Project PCHN62180 60 Mandatory
Advanced PET and MRI IIDS67432 15 Optional
Cognitive Psychology for Clinical Neurosciences PCHN62112 15 Optional
Cognitive and Social Neuroscience PCHN62162 15 Optional
Displaying 10 of 13 course units

Facilities

You will be able to access a range of facilities throughout the University.

Disability support

Practical support and advice for current students and applicants is available from the Disability Advisory and Support Service .