PURDUE INTEGRATIVE NEUROSCIENCE PROGRAM

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To consolidate and augment a new graduate training program in Integrative Neuroscience, this proposal requests five years of support. This new program at Purdue University was initiated three years ago. It is highly integrative, involving 28 faculty trainers from 10 departments in 5 schools. It provides a solid core of training in the fundamentals of neuroscience as well as more specialized training options, spanning across molecular, cellular and systems levels, in three broad thematic areas. The three themes, each providing training relevant to programs and initiatives in mental health fields, are (1) Molecular Signaling, (2) Development and Plasticity, and (3) Behavioral and Cognitive Neuroscience. Students' work with individualized advisory committees as well as a Graduate Training Committee to assure that they receive strong grounding in fundamentals and principles of integrative neuroscience as well as coherent training in an integrative specialty. The resulting curriculum provides a focus and depth of training often found only in more narrow programs, while also achieving the scope and breadth of the best interdisciplinary programs. Novel features of this program interlink it with the entire national and international neuroscience enterprise. Each semester, in addition to the extensive curriculum offered by Purdue neuroscience faculty, a special Integrative Neuroscience course staffed by eminent visiting neuroscientists is offered. Stipends for students to travel to premier training sites to obtain skills in specialized techniques are also provided. The overall result is an exceptional new program. It is integrative both in its content and in the complementarity it provides between Purdue's strengths and the best neuroscience resources available nationally and internationally. Students trained in the interdisciplinary Purdue Integrative Neuroscience program will make substantial contributions to mental health research and its applications in the next century.