Training Systems and Integrative Neuroscience

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 DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): This is a competing renewal application for funds to support pre- and postdoctoral training in Integrative Neuroscience at the Center for Neural Science at New York University. This proposal follows successful implementation of a new direction for this program that was undertaken in the previous award period. The focus of the training program is on four interrelated core areas of investigation: learning, memory, development and plasticity. The proposed training program includes a partnership with the Graduate Program in Neuroscience and Physiology at the NYU School of Medicine. We seek to renew our support at the level of 7 predoctoral and 3 postdoctoral fellows. This number of trainees requested stems from 1) recent expansion of our neuroscience faculty in the focus areas of this training program, 2) increasing cooperation between the new NYU Neuroscience Institute and the Center for Neural Science, 3) and increasing number of well- qualified trainees in our focus areas, and 4) the importance of fostering a cohesive training group of a sufficient size to foster trainee development across levels, from pre to post-doctoral and from cellular-molecular to systems and cognitive approaches, across program divisions, and between translational and basic research. Our proposed training program will provide a central focus for pre and postdoctoral training in areas of neuroscience critical to advancing knowledge of development and degeneration of the nervous system, neural disease processes, and disorders of memory and mental health. Our trainees will have the opportunity to be a part of a cohort of world class scientists engaged in cutting-edge research related to learning, memory, development and plasticity. We have compiled a group of 25 training faculty that will provide an integrative, collaborative training experience that crosses traditional disciplinary boundaries, spans levels of analysis, and levels of training. The trainees, predoctoral fellows in the third yer or higher and postdoctoral fellows in the early years post PhD, will have access to a special seminar series, individualized mentoring, opportunities to develop translational thinking, and workshops to promote balanced professional and academic skills important for future success. We expect our trainees to remain in the program for about 2 years, at which time we expect that they will have obtained independent funding or transitioned to another research support mechanism. In either case, they will have a continuing, high-level of support from the program. We seek to build a steadily growing cohort of scientists with shared goals and interests that will advance the goals of NIMH for research into the neural mechanisms of development, disorders and mental disease.