This application requests support for predoctoral Training in Systems and Integrative Biology with specific emphasis on Graduate Training in Neuroscience. The training program proposed encompasses Neuroscience from the study of such complex systems as the cortical processing of visual information of the molecular biology of synaptic transmission and neurotransmitter regulation of gene expression. The goal of the program is to prepare students for research careers in Neuroscience with an emphasis on a multi-dimensional approach to the problem. With this goal in mind we have assembled a faculty able to direct research projects in development, biochemistry, cellular electrophysiology, biophysics, molecular biology, photonics, psychophysics, cortical function, computational neuroscience, and the molecular genetics of diseases of the brain. These faculty are brought together in this goal by their common interests in Neuroscience and in their commitment to providing both didactic teaching and laboratory training to graduate students. We have designed a curriculum that will provide students with a broad foundation in Neuroscience that we hope will carry them forward in their work even as their specific research in Neuroscience may change. We have prepared a course of study and a series of exams that will test our progress in this endeavor. We have a number of mechanisms in place to promote collaborative interactions between the students and the faculty in different departments and to monitor the progress of student sin their course of study. We believe that this Predoctoral Training in Neuroscience meets an important need articulated by the Joint Congresses of the United States when they created the Decade of the Brain. This Law, enacted on July 25, 1989, resulted from a clear appreciation of the many timely disease related opportunities in Neuroscience research and called upon both the government and the people to observe this decade with appropriate programs. This program in Graduate Training in Neuroscience makes an important contribution to this Decade by ensuring its life beyond the year 2000 through the recruitment and education of young scientists able to carry on this important endeavor.
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