Biological Sciences

This course looks at what we know about healthy brains - how the brain is structured, the different types of brain cells, localization of function and neurochemistry of different brain areas, communication within the brain, and how we investigate it. It also looks at dysfunction in relation to vision, hearing, movement, memory, thinking, emotion, and behavior. Students learn about the world class research that takes place within the UCL Faculty of Brain Sciences and its constituent parts: the Division of Psychology and Language Sciences, the Division of Psychiatry, the Institutes of Ophthalmology and Neurology and the Ear Institute.

This course looks at the brain: what it does and how it does it. It takes students on a journey through contemporary neuroscience. What do we know about how the brain enables you to feel, see, move, experience emotions, and have thoughts and memories? What do we still need to know, and what happens when the brain starts to go wrong? 

This course provides an introduction to modern evolutionary biology, covering the origin of hereditary variation, natural selection, the origin of species, methods of phylogeny construction, major evolutionary events, and coevolution. Examples are drawn from all major taxa; molecular, cellular, morphological, and behavioral evolution are considered. 

This course introduces the entire biostatistical data analysis workflow in public health, from data management to data analysis and the interpretation of results, translating data into reliable and consumable information for knowledge discovery in public health. Particular emphasis is placed on the application of regression models in public health without the mathematical details and the proficiency in using statistical software to perform data analysis, integrating biostatistics, computer applications and public health for improving the health of mankind.

This course gives students the opportunity to expand their knowledge and understanding of a range of microorganisms that can give rise to human disease. 

This course introduces students to the physiological basis for requirements for energy, macronutrients and micronutrients, causes and consequences ofvitamin and mineral deficiency, current dietary guidelines for the UK.

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