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The
Neuroscience Graduate Program (NGP) is designed to provide students, through a
core of required courses in a unified first-year Basic Biomedical Science
Curriculum (BBSC) and in the NGP, with a broad foundation of knowledge in the
biomedical sciences and the fundamental concepts of five major fields of
neuroscience: neuroanatomy, neurophysiology, neurochemistry, neuropharmacology
and behavioral science.
Advanced and elective courses allow students to attain a greater depth of
knowledge in one or more of these areas. A number of the courses involve
detailed examination of the contemporary literature. Seminars by visiting
scientists and by local faculty provide a survey of areas of current research
interests in neuroscience. Graduate students also present seminars on their
research.
Students are brought in to the research laboratories of the graduate program
faculty through an orientation course and completion of three laboratory
rotations in the first sixteen months of the program. After this, students are
expected to choose a supervisory professor and to begin work on a research
problem, the solution of which will become the dissertation. The research
problem can be in any of the subdisciplines of neuroscience and can involve an
analysis at any level from the molecular or membrane level to the systems level
and behavior. Preparations available range from cell cultures, to brain slices,
to intact invertebrates or vertebrates. Experimental techniques that are
familiar to members of the faculty include current methods of experimental
neuroanatomy, such as retrograde and anterograde tracing and marking procedures,
immunocytochemistry, and electron and confocal microscopy; extra- and
intracellular recording, voltage clamping, patch clamping and microiontophoresis;
recordings of neural activity in awake, behaving animals; behavioral analyses;
high-performance liquid chromatography, mass spectroscopy, nuclear magnetic
resonance and MRI; measurements of neurotransmitters and their enzymes; receptor
assays; isolation and characterization of peptides and proteins; production of
monoclonal antibodies; molecular biology, recombinant DNA technology, and gene
expression; and other modern approaches to the analysis of neural structure and
function.
The
neuroscience faculty, representing 12 different academic departments, are
pursuing a wide range of research questions, including pain; neural
degeneration, response to injury and repair; development; somatic, visual,
cochlear and vestibular sensory systems; sensorimotor integration and motor
control; synaptic physiology and plasticity; stroke; neural bases of drug
addiction, impulsivity, schizophrenia, depression, and other behaviors under
neural and neuroendocrine control. The faculty are internationally recognized,
garner over $6.5million per year in individual research awards, program-project
grants and training grants, and publish, on average, three papers per year per
faculty member in refereed journals.
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