Course Descriptions

This course incorporates regular seminars on responsible conduct of research and discusses methods of scientific rigor and reproducibility. All Neuroscience Graduate Program students must attend this course each fall and spring until defense. Students must provide research presentations – 30-minute presentations for second-year students and 60-minute presentations for third-year and above students. Students must also attend neuroscience-related seminars. 

This course discusses the chemical and physical structure of membranes, electrophysiological techniques, permeability and transport, membrane potential, ionic channels, excitability in nerve and muscle, Hodgkin-Huxley formalism, pacemaker activity, synaptic transmission, cell-cell junctions, and membrane receptors. This course is also listed as PHS 641 and MCP 641.

The topics covered in this course include optical and fluorescence techniques; optogenetics; patch-clamp; active transport; theory of channels and carriers; cable properties and myelinated axons; Na+, K+, and Ca2+ ion channels; single-channel and whole-cell electrophysiological analysis; and intermolecular and surface forces. This course is also listed as PHS 642 and MCP 642.

Prerequisite: NEU 721

This course includes special work, lectures, laboratory work, readings, seminars, or a combination of these as determined by the student advisor on each student’s interests.

This course is an advanced introduction to modern neurobiology, focusing on the cellular and molecular biology of neurons, glia, synapses, and neurotransmitters.

This course will explore nervous system development from early neural induction and neurogenesis to the construction of neural circuits. It will cover basic mechanisms of neurulation and CNS patterning, neural progenitor migration, neural crest and ectodermal placodes, programmed cell death, construction of neural circuits, axon guidance, synaptogenesis and several emerging techniques in neurobiology.

This course provides a general – but intensive – background to the neurosciences beyond NEU 760 and NEU 761. It prepares students for more specialized neuroscience courses, lab rotations, and subsequent dissertation work. The course presents sensory, motor, and integrative neuroscience at the level of functional systems, but it does so in the context of cellular and molecular neuroscience. It concentrates on the experimental basis for our understanding of nervous system function and uses both didactic lectures and student discussions of current research literature.

Pre-requisites: PHS641, PHS 642, and NEU761, or permission of the course director.

This course, designed for those involved in basic neuroscience research, covers functional neuroanatomy. Emphasis is placed on gross anatomy, identification of pathways and circuits, and a description of the physiological functions of neuroanatomical systems. The course uses clinical examples and/or case histories to help illustrate the nervous system’s functional aspects. Each class includes a lab segment in which students study human and sheep brains, examine models of the brain, and use internet neuroanatomy websites with pictures, text, clinical examples, and 3D rotations of the nervous system.

This course is required for all Ph.D. candidates. Students enroll for credits as determined by the Office of Graduate Studies, but not less than a total of 24 credits. No more than 12 hours of research may be taken in a regular semester, and no more than six hours in a summer session.

This course is required for all Ph.D. candidates. Students enroll for 1-12 credits as determined by the Office of Graduate Studies.

Students must be registered for this course in the semester they plan to defend. NEU 850 establishes research in residence for the Ph.D. after the student has been enrolled for the permissible cumulative total in appropriate doctoral research. It’s a non-credit course. Students may be regarded as a full-time student as determined by the Dean of the Graduate School.