Program Overview

The Neuroscience graduate program strives to provide students with a solid foundation in Neuroscience principles and access to a wide array of research techniques that permit rigorous investigations of the normal and diseased nervous system. Neuroscience is a rapidly evolving and dynamic research field that touches all of the medical sciences. Molecular and cellular studies focus on the normal and diseased nervous system, the developing and aging nervous system, neurochemistry and pharmacology, neuroimmunology, cellular and membrane neurophysiology, and injury and repair of the nervous system. Behavioral and cognitive studies focus on the neurobiology of mental illnesses, eating/obesity, sex, addiction, and autism, neurotoxicity, human perception, and brain functional circuitry and imaging.

Graduate students interested in pursuing studies in the Neurosciences apply to and are admitted into the Neuroscience Program through the Interdisciplinary Program (IDP) in Biomedical Sciences in the College of Medicine. During the fall semester of the first year of study, all students enroll in the core IDP courses that are designed to prepare students for advanced graduate study in one of the six graduate programs that include the Neuroscience program. During the spring semester of the first year, students begin to tailor their coursework to their research interests by completing up to 6 credits of advanced course work. See this link for a detailed listing of required and recommended Neuroscience courses.

In addition to course work, all students complete 3, 6-week research rotations over the course of the first year. In the fall of the first year, students are given a list of faculty members who have or who project that they will have graduate research openings in their laboratories for the coming year. Students contact individual faculty from this list to set up rotations. Upon completion of these rotations, the students identify a research mentors who will supervise their research training in the second and subsequent years.

In the second year, students begin working on dissertation research projects, successfully complete the course work required by the Neuroscience program and prepare for their oral/written qualifying exam. This exam must be completed by the end of the fall semester of the student's third year. Successful completion of this exam advances the student to candidacy for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. On average, students enrolled in the Neuroscience Program complete their Ph.D. degree in a total of 5 years.