Aims

- to introduce to current neuropsychology, highlighting its relevance for neurosciences and for psychology
- to present basic neuropathology principles (cerebrovascular accident, traumatisms, dementia, etc.)
- to discuss the concept of cerebral localisation of superior functions
- to present the logic and historical interest of case studies in neuropsychology
- to situate the main practices in clinical neuropsychology (diagnosis, expertise, rehabilitation)
- to introduce to memory, attention and visual gnosias disorders

Main themes

- presentation of the concept of cerebral localisation, history and current positions
- presentation of the main cerebral pathologies (tumors, traumatisms, cerebrovascular accidents, epilepsy, dementias, etc.)
- presentation of the basic concepts of cognitive neuropsychology: modularity, cognitive architecture, transparency assumption.
- presentation of the theoretical constraints in facts collection: work on single case, single and double dissociation, relation to normal functioning, association of disorders, etc.
- presentation of attention disorders after a cerebral impairment (alert, selectivity, vigilance, sustained attention, etc.)
- presentation of memory disorders after a cerebral impairment (various types of amnesia, their etiopathogenic bases, the selective alterations of the various memory systems, etc.)
- presentation of visual perception disorders (concept of agnosia, cerebral localisations, cognitive architectures, case studies, ...)
- introduction to functional neuroimaging (PET, FMRI, ERP technics); convergence/divergence of lesional and of neuroimaging data for a particular field) and notions of functional neuroanatomy

Content and teaching methods

This course is an introduction to the basic concepts of current neuropsychology, including the functional neuroimaging technics.
The various pathologies are illustrated by case studies and video documents

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