Biological Sciences

This biologically-oriented course gives students an introduction to generally applicable stages in learning and memory, namely encoding, storage, and retrieval. In addition, students are exposed to the different brain areas and structures that contribute to the different types of memory, and to the contribution of individual neurons to forming short- and long-term memory traces. This course aims to significantly deepen the students' concepts of working memory, episodic memory, different forms of conditioning, and skill learning, emotional learning, and learning by example. Insights into how memory works may help enhance memory and learning in many daily activities, educational contexts, and clinical contexts that involve revalidation after physical or emotional trauma, neurological disease, brain lesions, or aging. The course stimulates students to make the link between theoretical insights and applications. The corresponding practicals for this course are: Measuring Cognitive Functions 1, Measuring Cognitive Functions 2, Cognitive Disorders in Practice

The course is taught jointly by the School of Natural Sciences and the School of Psychology, and begins with a brief history of behavioral research. Students are introduced to various aspects of learning, cultural transmission, cognition, play, and intelligence in animals, including humans. They explore the animal’s behavior in its environment and why all individuals of a species do not behave in the same way. The course addresses the importance of an understanding of behavior in relation to conservation in the wild and in zoos, and in relation to climate change.

Understand and master basic scientific theories in biology, and be prepared well in studying other courses as cell biology, biochemistry, molecular biology, and etc.

This course covers topics from general chemical building blocks of life to cellular biology, from biochemistry to genetics, and from DNA to RNA then to protein; Other topics lectured include control of gene expression, biotechnology, several picked kingdoms, immune system, and nerve system.

This course introduces students to recent breakthroughs in the physical and biological sciences that are now being explored for biomedical applications. The topics come directly from the research expertise of the lecturers, all of whom are young principal investigators in the new research institutes at the University of Maastricht: MERLN and M4I. The course covers a broad range of topics, including nanomaterials for regenerative medicine, supramolecular biomaterials, big data and computer learning, electron microscopy, imaging and diagnostic mass spectrometry, and structural biology of tuberculosis. Each of these fields has the potential to address some of society's greatest challenges, including the health and vitality of our aging population, and this is discussed in both the lectures and the tasks. Students gain firsthand experience of scientific research taking place at the University of Maastricht and have the opportunity to visit research laboratories as part of a demonstration of some of the topics discussed in the lectures. Students experience unrestricted access to a firsthand account of a new generation of research lines with a new generation of labs. In addition to a final content-based oral exam, there are two papers for evaluation. For their midterm, students choose a recent discovery reported in the press and investigate the scientific claims and integrity of the reporting. In the final paper, the student acts as the reporter, and writes an opinion piece on a topic of research in either MERLN or M4I; this report is informed by an interview with one of the lecturers. This course is designed for top students with a concentration in the sciences who wish to advance their learning to the next level, beyond textbooks. Students benefit from close contact with young scientists from diverse fields and are expected to read scientific literature to enhance their learning. Skills learned within this course are highly applicable for more advanced degrees (Master's, PhD) within the sciences, and within the competitive job market.