Training Systems and Integrative Neuroscience

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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 aims to continue and enhance a successful implementation of our training program focused 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 5 predoctoral and 2 postdoctoral fellows. This number of trainees requested is based primarily on the importance of fostering a cohesive training group of a sufficient size to support 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. This represents an increase of one trainee, with a clinical/translational focus. 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 26 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 year 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. In this renewal, we have added a specific postdoctoral training component. We expect our trainees to remain in the program for 1-2 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.