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Electives

• NSB majors are required to choose three elective courses, at least one of which is a 3000-level seminar.

• Seminars are typically worth 4 points while lectures are worth 3 points. Seminars typically meet just once per week, but involve more work outside of class, reading primary literature, writing in-depth papers on a focused topic, and/or presenting research to your peers.

• Each of the 3000-level seminars offered by the NSB department can be selected as elective.These courses are listed below, along with approved elective courses offered by other departments at Barnard and Columbia. The elective courses are grouped by content – cognitive/behavioral, computational, or molecular. They are grouped this way only to guide your interest. Always consult with the Course Catalogue or Directory of Classes for current information. 

Cognitive/Behavioral

Lectures

  • NSBV BC2154 Hormones and Behavior
  • NSBV BC2005 Flavor Perception and the Human Diet
  • NSBV BC2008 Adaptive or Arrested Development of the Adolescent Brain
  • NSBV BC3405 Neuroscience of Trauma
  • NSBV BC2006 Disorders of the Mind and the Brain
  • PSYC BC2115 Cognitive Psychology
  • PSYC BC2129 Developmental Psychology
  • PSYC BC2163 Human Learning and Memory
  • PSYC BC2110 Perception
  • PSYC BC2107 Psychology of Learning
  • PSYC BC2177 Psychology of Drug Use and Abuse (Note: only PSYC BC2177 or PSYC UN2460 (Drugs and Behavior) can be taken for credit because of content overlap)
  • PSYC BC3361 Atypical Development in Cognition, Language, and Behavior
  • PSYC UN2220 Memory and Stress
  • PSYC UN2235 Thinking and Decision Making
  • PSYC UN2430 Cognitive Neuroscience
  • PSYC UN2435 Social Neuroscience
  • PSYC UN2250 Evolution of Cognition
  • PSYC UN2460 Drugs and Behavior (Note: only PSYC UN2460 or PSYC BC2177 (Psychology of Drug Use and Abuse) can be taken for credit because of content overlap)
  • PSYC UN2470 Fundamentals of Neuropsychology
  • PSYC UN2280 Introduction to Developmental Psychology
  • PSYC UN2481 Developmental Cognitive Neuroscience
  • BIOL BC2280 Animal Behavior
  • PHIL UN3654 Computational Models of Mind

Seminars

  • NSBV BC3392 Psychobiology of Stress
  • NSVB BC3376 Psychobiology of Infant Development
  • NSBV BC3377 Adolescent Neurobehavioral Development
  • NSBV BC3398 Psychobiology of Sleep
  • NSBV BC3387 Topics in Neuroethics
  • NSBV BC3385 Neuroethology
  • NSBV BC3384 Rhythms of the Brain
  • NSBV BC3394 Neurobiology of Social Behavior
  • NSBV BC3381 Visual Neuroscience: From the eyeball to the mind's eye
  • NSBV BC3389 Hallucinations, Illusions, Dreaming, and Imagination
  • PSYC BC3179 Cephalopod Cognition
  • PSYC BC3372 Comparative Cognition
  • PSYC BC3369 Language Development
  • PSYC BC3394 Metacognition
  • PSYC UN3445 Brain and Memory
  • PSYC UN3450 Evolution Intelligence & Consciousness
  • PSYC GU4222 Cognitive Neuroscience of Aging
  • PSYC GU4435 Non-mnemonic Function of Memory Systems
  • PSYC GU4498 Behavioral Epigenetics
  • PSYC GU4225 Consciousness and Attention
  • PSYC GU4440 Topics in Neurobiology & Behavior (Section 2; Prof. Rae Silver)
  • PSYC GU4491 The Parental Brain
  • PSYC UN3496 Neuroscience and Society
  • PSYC UN3525 Clinical Neurospsychology
  • BIOL UN3019 Brain Evolution

Computational

Lectures

  • NSBV BC2004 Fundamentals in Computational Neuroscience Models
  • BIOL BC2490 Coding in Biology
  • BIOL BC2500 Matlab for Scientists
  • STEM BC2223 Programming in the Behavioral Sciences
  • COMS W4701 Artificial Intelligence
  • COMS W3157 Advanced Programming
  • COMS W3261 Computer Science Theory
  • COMS W3203 Discrete Mathematics: Introduction to Combinatorics and Graph Theory
  • COMS W3210 Scientific Computation
  • BMEN E4894 Biomedical Imaging
  • BMEN E6003 Computational Modeling of Physiological Systems
  • BMEE E4030 Neural Control Engineering
  • BMEE E6030 Neural Modeling and Neuroengineering
  • BMEN E4430 Principles of Magnetic Resonance Imaging
  • ECBM E4090 Brain-computer Interfaces Laboratory
  • EEBM E6020 Methods of Computational Neuroscience
  • CSEE W4119 Computer Networks
  • APMA E2101 Introduction to Applied Mathematics

Seminars

  • NSBV BC3386 The Neural Code
  • COMS W4771 Computational Genomics
  • COMS BC3162 Developing Accessible User Interfaces
  • COMS E6731 Humanoid Robots
  • BMEB W4020 Computational Neuroscience: Circuits in the Brain
  • BMEN E4840 Functional Imaging for the Brain
  • ECBM E4070 Computing with Brain Circuits of Model Organisms
  • ECBM E4040 Neural Networks and Deep Learning
  • EEBM E6090 Topics in Computational Neuroscience and Neuroengineering
  • ECBM E6070 Topics in Neuroscience & Deep Learning

Molecular

Lectures

  • NSBV BC2003 Neuroendocrinology of Stress
  • BIOL BC3310 Cell Biology
  • BIOL BC3352 Development
  • BIOL BC3302 Molecular Biology
  • BIOL BC2100 Molecular & Mendelian Genetics
  • BIOL BC3304 Topics in Molecular Genetics
  • BIOL BC3360 Physiology
  • BIOL UN3025 Neurogenetics
  • CHEM BC3230 Organic Chemistry
  • CHEM BC3282 Biochemistry I or BIOC UN3300 Biochemistry
  • GU4501 Biochemistry 1: Leveraging Structure and Metabolism to Design Therapeutics for Cancer, Neurodegeneration, and COVID-19

Seminars

  • NSBV BC3105 Neuroimmunology
  • NSBV BC3397 Neural Modulation
  • BIOL GU4290 Biological Microscopy
  • PSYC GU4498 Behavioral Epigenetics
  • PSYC GU4482 Neural Plasticity