This application requests funds to initiate a new highly integrated predoctoral training program in basic neuroscience. The training grant will build on two existing training grants, """"""""Training in the neurobiology of psychiatric disorders"""""""" (MH18273) and """"""""Training in the neurobiology of neurological disorders"""""""" (NS07391). In addition, the training grant program will help to consolidate three neuroscience training programs within our community, those in the Department of Neuroscience, the Program in Neurobiology, and the Center for the Neural Bases of Cognition, programs that cut across two universities, the University of Pittsburgh and Carnegie Mellon University. Funds requested will be used to support students in their first and second years, with support being provided to the top one-third of our trainees. The program described within this proposal focuses primarily on research training. However, students will take a series of core courses in neuroscience and other areas of basic biological science, a course in clinical neuroscience, and several advanced elective courses and seminars, and will pass through a series of """"""""milestones,"""""""" including a comprehensive exam. In addition, trainees will participate actively in a series of professional development workshops. These workshops provide explicit training in such """"""""survival skills"""""""" as written and oral communication, obtaining jobs and grants, teaching, and managing a research lab. Training in responsible conduct is an integral part of both the survival skill workshops and the core curriculum itself. Students are encouraged to consider a wide range of employment opportunities within which to exercise their skills in research, and seminars are held to permit them to become familiar with employment both within and outside of traditional academic research universities. Two groups of faculty are described: a core group of full faculty, consisting of individuals with extensive experience in training and in research, and a small group of junior """"""""pro-faculty"""""""" who have outstanding promise and will be available to serve as co-mentors in conjunction with a more senior faculty member. Data are provided to support our belief that we will be able to obtain outstanding trainees for the proposed program.
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