Forms for Current Students
- Bulletin Description
- Website Guidelines
- Application Form
- Application Form Submission
- Submission of Public Presentation/Defense Information
- Submission of Final Senior Thesis
- Example title page: Distinction only
- Example title page: Distinction and Honors
- Minor Online Application Form
- only use if adding minor for 2022-23 bulletin year or earlier.
- NSCI 498 - Individual Research Signature and Approval
- Individual Research Approval (any course other than NSCI 498)
- Request Exception for an elective course
Approved Special Topics and Honors Courses
These courses have been pre-approved to count towards the Neuroscience major or minor. Your advisor should be able to process an exception to count any of the listed courses towards one of the specific requirements listed for each course. If you would like us to consider counting a course that is not on this list, you can submit a request to have it evaluated.
Note that many of these courses have restrictions or prerequisites and you may need special permission to register for them. If you are unable to register in any of these courses you should contact the instructor of the course or the undergraduate office in the department offering the course to discuss any permissions/overrides you will need and the process for obtaining them.
Current Semester - Spring 2024
An overview of neurodevelopmental disorders, focusing on the known genetic and environmental mechanisms leading to altered nervous system function. For each disorder, we will discuss how the nervous system is altered, the underlying biological mechanisms, and current/future treatments. The class format will include traditional lectures and interactive discussions of scientific journal articles.
Can count as: Major Elective, Minor Elective, CMN Concentration, NND Concentration
Animals sense their environments in very different ways. In this course, we will compare the molecular and physical mechanisms underlying various sensory modalities (including taste, smell, vision, hearing, and magnetoreception) and then explore how differences in sensory perception influence the ecology and evolution of animal taxa.
Can count as: Major Elective, Minor Elective, CMN Concentration, CBN Concentration-List A
The major goal of this course is to provide an overview of the theory, measurement, and applications used in performance psychology. Students will learn how the interaction of perceptual, cognitive, emotional, and biological factors influence performance of both individuals and groups in a variety of settings (military, sports, school etc.). Emphasis will be placed on developing the knowledge, interpretation, and approaches of various theoretical and applied techniques used in human performance from a neuropsychological perspective.
Can count as: Major Elective, Minor Elective, CBN Concentration-List B
Role of motor development in the growth and development of individuals exhibiting impaired motor control.
Can count as: Major Elective, Minor Elective, CBN Concentration-List A
Welcome to the Psychology of Sleep. We will cover topics including the neurological processes of sleep, dreaming, and consciousness, as well as sleep disorders such as narcolepsy, insomnia, and hypersomnia. This class is designed to be interactive, with lectures and activities designed to give you a unique experiential learning experience. Not only will you learn about sleep in general, you will also gain insight into your own sleeping patterns. Being able to write and talk about the topics in sleep science are imperative to sleep education learning and outreach.
Can count as: Major Elective, Minor Elective, CBN Concentration-List B, NND Concentration
This course will present the research, theory and practice of happiness. Research spanning the fields of psychology, linguistics, neuroscience, philosophy, and health will be presented and discussed. Developmental and cross-cultural perspectives will be included. Students will learn about the research and theories on happiness and how to incorporate best practices for happiness into their own lives. Homework will include some of the best practices for happiness. This course is not group therapy nor is it pop psychology; presented material will be based on research and scholarship and students will gain an understanding of what we know and what there is still to learn about happiness.
Can count as: Major Elective, Minor Elective
This course will overview of the principles, theory, and applications of human affective neuroscience. The course introduces theory and research in major areas of affective neuroscience, including cross-level integration of biological data, including neural and physiological data, with affective science, and cognitive processes. The course will describe laboratory techniques and methodological principles in human affective neuroscience methods and will include demonstrations. Readings will include introductions to topics and relevant selections from the current literature. The basis of the course will involve a combination of lecture and discussions co-facilitated by students and the professor.
Can count as: Major Elective, Minor Elective, CBN Concentration-List B
Brain imaging provides a window into the inner workings of the human brain, and brain measures derived from magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) are routinely used to investigate important psychological and health issues by top neuroscientists around the world. Students enrolled in this course will learn how MRI works and gain hands-on experience with a wide variety of MRI data types (e.g., gray and white matter volumetric data, cerebral blood flow data, task-related brain data, white matter tractography data, etc). As students learn about each type of MRI data, they will be given an opportunity to apply their knowledge to actual data drawn from USC's Aging Brain Cohort, an ongoing study that gathers demographic, lifestyle, neuropsychological and health information from healthy aging adults in South Carolina. Each student's experience will culminate with an oral presentation of their own research project, in which they attempt to relate brain data and behavioral data in a novel and provocative manner.
Can count as: Major Elective, Minor Elective, CBN Concentration-List B, Research Requirement
Previous Semesters
- NSCI 560-001 (Instructor: Desai) - Language and Brain [Major Elective, Minor Elective, CBN Concentration - List B]
- SCHC 401-H01 and 401L-H01 (Instructor: Matchin) - Language and the Brain [Major Elective, Minor Elective, CBN Concentration - List B]
- SCHC 330-H01 (Instructor: Levens) - Food and Eating Behavior [Major Elective, Minor Elective]
- MUSC 310-001 (Instructor: Alcalde) - Music Cognition [Major Elective, Minor Elective, CBN Concentration - List B]
- PSYC 589-001 (Instructor: Rorden) - From Image to Inference [Major Elective, Minor Elective, CBN Concentration - List B]
- NSCI 560-001 (Instructon: Mactutus) - Neurotoxicology [Major Elective, Minor Elective, CMN Concentration, CBN Concentration]
- BIOL 599 (Instructor: Welshhans) - Biology of Human Neurodevelopmental Disorders [Major Elective, Minor Elective, CMN Concentration, NND Concentration]
- CSCE 590 (Instructor: O'Reilly) - Analysis of Neurosciene Data [Major Elective, Minor Elective]