Psychology (MSc)

Team-focused research.

Unique facilities and research methods.

Hands-on research opportunities.

Cognitive and Behavioural Neurosciences

Neuroscience is one of the most exciting and rapidly advancing fields in all of the life sciences. At Laurier, we take a broadly integrative perspective, examining the interaction between behaviour, cognition and the nervous system across a diverse set of species from fish to humans, ranging in scale from populations, to individuals, to cells, on timescales ranging from milliseconds to generations.

The objectives of the MSc program are to develop competence in designing, conducting and evaluating research in the neurosciences. The purpose of the program is to prepare you for doctoral studies, or for employment in an environment requiring research skills.

You’ll hit the ground running and start conducting research with a faculty advisor in the fall of your first year. Over the course of 16 to 24 months, with the close mentorship of your advisor, you’ll learn how to develop a program of research, use research methodologies and statistical techniques, present your work in talks and posters, and communicate your research as an expert in the field.

You'll form close bonds with faculty and peers through small, intensive courses, research lab groups, and regular area meetings including seminars and journal clubs.

Program Overview

This full-time program is normally completed in two years (six consecutive terms). Four half-credit courses and a thesis constitute the degree requirements. Considerable emphasis is placed on developing and completing the thesis.

Required courses:

• PS600: Advanced Behavioural Statistics I
• PS601: Advanced Behavioural Statistics II
• One of PS660: Principles of Cognition or PS663: Principles of Neuroscience
• Research Seminar in Neuroscience I
• PS699: a thesis that is supervised by one of our faculty members

Research Focus

Our faculty work in the fields of behavioural and cognitive neuroscience. Specific research foci include:

• Animal models of human medical/mental disorders including addiction, eating disorders and age-related memory disorders.
• The importance of learning processes including neurobiology of learning and memory, comparative cognition of time and number processing, learning-motivation interface and neural plasticity.
• Our Centre for Cognitive Neuroscience researchers spans a broad range of cognitive neuroscience topics, including visual and auditory perception, motor control, attention, memory and language.

Our research interests are interconnected, focusing on the mechanisms underlying:

• Visual and auditory perception;
• Motor control, attention and memory;
• Language;
• Medical (mental) disorders, including addiction, eating disorders, and age-related memory disorders;
• The neurobiology of learning and memory, the evolution of learning, social learning, comparative cognition, the learning-motivation interface, and neural plasticity; and
• Social organization and collective behaviour.

Facilities

Our facilities allow faculty members and students to employ a rich diversity of tools and techniques including:

• Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), high-density evoked potentials (EP), and transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS).
• Animal models of human medical (mental) disorders, including addiction, eating disorders, and age-related memory disorders.
• Automated tracking of collective behaviour, and operant behaviours.
• Confocal imaging, immunohistochemistry, patch clamp electrophysiology, quantitative gene expression analyses, and in situ hybridization.

In addition, a field station is equipped to study large groups of freely behaving animals to study the neural mechanisms organizing complex social behaviour.

• Start: Fall (September)
• Format: Full-time
• Application deadline: Jan. 6 (first consideration), March 30 (international applicants, July 30 (domestic applicants). We evaluate late applications if space permits.