Neuroscience Training Program

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DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): This is a renewal application requesting support for broad-based, fundamental, predoctoral (pre-thesis) training in neuroscience at the University of Iowa. The proposal builds on two decades of success in training Ph.D. students in neuroscience, and on recent successes in matriculating and training first-rate students with support from this Training Grant. The Neuroscience Graduate Program emphasizes a highly interdisciplinary orientation, and is guided by the jointly sponsored NIH predoctoral neuroscience mission to foster work toward the diagnosis, treatment, and prevention of nervous system disorders, and the basic sciences fundamental to this purpose. The Program draws on a long tradition of close interactions among scientists with primary appointments in basic and clinical departments, and their availability to mentor students, formally and by example, in the interplay between basic and clinical research. The Training Faculty has 58 extramurally-funded neuroscientists with research interests that span the gamut of neuroscience: biophysical and pharmacological properties of ion channels; synaptic proteins and signaling molecules in normal, developmental, and pathological states; autonomic regulation; pain mechanisms; neuromuscular diseases; cortical and subcortical organization; neurobiology of depression and schizophrenia; diagnosis and treatment of the dementias; neural correlates and mechanisms of higher functions such as language, memory, and decision-making; and the neurobiology of emotion and consciousness. Coursework and laboratory rotations during the first two years of training guarantee that students become conversant across all levels of neuroscience, and students enjoy ample opportunities for both vertical and horizontal movement within the Program. Part I of the Comprehensive Examination at the end of Year 2 tests explicitly for this broad-based knowledge in a written format; Part II is a focused NRSA-type research proposal that is defended orally to a faculty committee. Thereafter, students focus on dissertation research. Responsible conduct of research is taught and evaluated in all phases of the Program. The Program has enjoyed unprecedented success during the current funding period: a sharp increase in the quantity and quality of applicants; matriculation of students from underrepresented minority groups; a steep rise in the number, quality, and extramural funding of the Training Faculty; decreased time to degree; and placement of graduates in prominent neuroscience related academic positions. To extend these accomplishments, this renewal request asks for 6 stipends to support first and second-year students.