Center for Neural and Cognitive Sciences

The Center for Neural and Cognitive Sciences is an interdisciplinary research center focusing upon the areas of linguistic cognition and cognitive systems. A truly interdisciplinary center, it brings together Faculty and researchers from various disciplines such as physics, linguistics, computer science, neurobiology and philosophy to ponder upon the nature of cognition. Within the short span of its existence the center has received considerable international attention. The Center is in the process of setting up a well-equipped laboratory with supercomputing, ERP/EEG, invivo elelctrophysiology and eye-tracking equipment, and offers research programs in neural and cognitive sciences at the M.Phil. and Doctoral levels. The Center has been offering post-graduate courses at the interface of linguistics, philosophy and neurosciences for students majoring in the sciences and the humanities. It has received generous assistance from the University Grants Commission towards major research projects and infrastructural facilities under their Innovative Programs Scheme. The Center is on the network of the National Initiative of the Department of Science and Technology on Cognitive Science Research and has received substantial grants from them.

Professor S. Bapiraju is the Coordinator of the Center and Professor Gautam Sengupta is  the Associate Coordinator.

Programs of Study

The M.Phil. programme in Cognitive Science consists of 16 credits of course work followed by a dissertation. The course work, to be completed within one semester, covers the following topics

• Formal and Computational Approaches to Cognition: meaning, learning and reasoning
• Empirical Bases of Cognition
• Language, Philosophy and Cognition
• Topics in Cognitive Science: Dissertation Oriented Readings
• Statistical methods and Research Methodology

• The Ph.D. program in neural and cognitive sciences involves an additional 16 credits of dissertation-oriented readings in the second semester of the program, followed by a dissertation.

Eligibility for Admission

For M.Phil. and Ph.D.: Master’s degree in any discipline in the Humanities or Social or Natural Sciences with at least 55% marks. Selection is made on the basis of a written test followed by an interview. The intake for M.Phil. and Ph.D. for the 2011-12 academic year would be 8 and 3 respectively.

Faculty

Coordinator

Prof. S. Bapiraju
   Department of Computer and Information Sciences
   Email: bapiks at yahoo.co.in
   Phone: +91 40 23134014
   Areas on interest: One primary area of research is investigation of brain bases of action (motor) representation and understanding and its breakdown  in disease. The other area is sequence learning, both implicit and explicit sequences. We use a variety of approaches including, behavioural,  neuroimaging experiments and computational models such as bayesian methods, connectionist approaches.

Associate Coordinators

Prof. Gautam Sengupta
   Centre for Applied Linguistics & Translation Studies
   Email: gsghyd at gmail dot com
   Phone: +91 9676497746
   Areas on interest: Linguistic cognition, eye-movement in reading, formal and computational linguistics, philosophy of language

Regular Faculty

Dr. Joby Joseph
   Centre for Neural and Cognitive Sciences, University of Hyderabad
   Email: badjoby at gmail.com
   Phone: +91 40 23134493
   Areas on interest: How information is processed in the neuronal systems leading to perception and behavior: Experimental techniques used are in vivo electrophysiology, immuno-cytochemistry and imaging in simple organisms along with computational approaches.
 

Associate Faculty

Dr. Somsukla Banerjee
   Center for Applied Linguistics & Translation Studies
   Email: somsukla2005 at gmail.com
   Phone: +91 40 23133665

Prof. Vipin Srivastava
   School of Physics
   Email: vpssp at uohyd.ernet.in
   Phone: +91 40 23134364
   Areas on interest: Brain function modeling using mathematics and condensed matter physics

Dr. S.L. Sabat
   School of Physics
   Email: slssp at uohyd.ernet.in
   Phone: +91 40 23134326

 Prof. A. K. Pujari
   Department of Computer and Information Sciences

Dr. Vineet P. Nair
   Department of Computer and Information Sciences
   Email: vineetcs at uohyd.ernet.in
   Phone: +91 40-23134012

Dr. Prajit K. Basu
   Department of Philosophy
   Email: pkbsh at uohyd.ernet.in
   Phone: +91 40 23133509
   Areas on interest: Reasoning, Mental Models, Visual Attention, Embodied Cognition

Prof. Amitabha Das Gupta
   Department of Philosophy
   Email: amitabha_philosophy at hotmail.com
   Phone: +91 40 23133540

Prof. P. Prakash Babu
   Department of Animal Sciences
   Email: ppbsl at uohyd.ernet.in
   Phone: +91 40 23134584

Visiting Faculty

Prof. D. Vasanta
   Osmania University
   Email: vasantad at gmail.com
   Phone: +91 40 27425193

Dr. S. Kiranmayi
   Apollo Health City
   Email: bapiks at gmail.com
   Phone: +91 9440389231

Last updated: January 6, 2012