Social, Cognitive, and Neuroscience Program Description
The University of Texas at El Paso (UTEP)
offers a Ph.D. in Psychology with a specialization in Social,
Cognitive, and Neuroscience (SCN). The SCN Program of study is
designed to provide students an opportunity to pursue strong
experimental approaches to theoretical and applied areas of social,
cognitive, and neuroscience problems.
Located
on the U.S./Mexico border, UTEP offers a unique bicultural environment
for research on social cognition and the cognitive processes related to
social categorization, intergroup relations, stereotypes, and prejudice (Zárate, Crites). Because El Paso is one of the
largest U.S. cities with a fluently bilingual population, it is also an
excellent laboratory for studying cognitive processes underlying
bilingualism including the cognitive processes involved in bilingual
language processing and memory organization and the development of
bilingualism in children and adults (Francis, Schwartz).
Students in the Ph.D. Program in Psychology who have a special interest
in bilingualism also have the option to pursue a concentration in
Language Acquisition and Bilingualism.
The SCN
specialization also offers research opportunities related to various
areas of neuroscience. One of these is a study of the relationship
between neural activity and attitudes, emotion, and
memory (Crites). Other research areas include the neurochemical
basis of compensation during neurodegenerative disease and injury (Castañeda), the neurochemical mechanisms mediating behavior in animal
models of addiction (O’Dell, Castañeda), and cholinergic
treatments for cognitive impairment in dementia and stroke (Moss). Other research focuses on cognitive and neural development in children and how they are affected by genetic and medical conditions that involve glutamate/GABA transmission systems (Sobin).
In addition to the research offered in the psychology department, there
are also opportunities for collaboration with other departments
including the Department of Biological Sciences and the Department of
Languages and Linguistics. |