NGP Faculty Listings

Neuroscience Graduate Program Contacts:

Program Director:
James E. Blankenship, Ph.D.

Associate Director:
Volker E. Neugebauer, M.D., Ph.D.

Program Coordinator:
Cindy Cheatham

 

Neuroscience Graduate Program

Understanding the function of nervous systems is one of the greatest challenges facing the biomedical sciences, and its resolution can do more to explain and predict the human condition than any other realm of science.  As much as half of the human genome may be expressed uniquely in the brain, and all of human nature resides in the mind.  Elucidating the workings of this mind-brain—how the myriad array of components interact to produce perception, behavior and thought—is the final frontier and perhaps the greatest and most complex mystery of the universe. 

Objective and Scope of the Training Program

The objective of the Neuroscience Graduate Program (NGP) is to provide an internationally competitive educational program in neuroscience leading to the Ph.D. degree. The rich interdisciplinary program of course work and research is designed to enhance a trainee's ability to become a scholarly and productive contributor to our knowledge of nervous system function. It is anticipated that our graduates will become teachers and/or researchers in the field of neuroscience in academic institutions, industry, biotechnology or government. The program is designed to be rigorous but flexible and is explicitly multidisciplinary. Research can be done in areas ranging from molecules to excitable membranes to behavior, using preparations ranging from cell cultures to isolated ganglia to brain slices to intact nervous systems of invertebrates and vertebrates.

Students are exposed to a broad, integrated foundation of courses in the biomedical sciences and to fundamental neurobiological concepts.  They also gain exposure to modern experimental techniques: cell labeling with transported markers; immunocytochemistry; electron and confocal microscopy; nuclear magnetic resonance-based imaging; electrophysiological methods of intra- and extracellular recording; voltage and patch clamping; biochemical and pharmacological methods for isolating, identifying and characterizing the activities of important neurotransmitters, peptides, growth factors, receptors, drugs and other signaling molecules; immunological, cell culture and molecular genetics techniques; recombinant DNA technology; and behavioral research and measurement paradigms. Major areas of research strength in the program include:  pain, Alzheimer’s disease and neurodegeneration, spinal cord injury and brain trauma, muscle disorders, vestibular and auditory systems, drug abuse, anxiety disorders and learning and memory. Our goal is to graduate neuroscientists who have a broad base of experience with modern experimental skills and who will seek to explore cellular and molecular mechanisms for understanding the organization and function of nervous systems.