Continuing support is requested for an interdisciplinary program that provides broad and fundamental predoctoral training in the neurosciences. Trainees are recruited nationally and competitively selected from among the applicants to the existing Neuroscience Graduate Program at the University of Cincinnati, as well as from other graduate programs at the College of Medicine. The proposed training grant supports entering students during their first two years of training, prior to the beginning of dissertation work. Trainees receive didactic instruction in basic neuroscience and cell/molecular biology through a series of existing courses, journal clubs and seminar series, and research training through rotations in the laboratories of participating faculty. The core of the proposed training program rests upon growing and vigorous interdepartmental Neuroscience Program. The University of Cincinnati is strongly committed to the growth of neuroscience, and the Neuroscience Graduate Program receives an administrative budget and a limited amount of stipend and tuition support from the Dean of the College of Medicine. Participating faculty have active and productive research programs reflecting a diversity of approaches toward understanding nervous system function. The program sponsors a number of activities that foster cohesiveness and a sense of identity for students in the program and encourages student-faculty interactions. These include the Cincinnati Neurofest, an international Neuroscience symposium; bimonthly student luncheons with the Program Director and other faculty; an annual recruitment weekend; a welcome reception for new students in early fall; a gathering for students and faculty at the annual meeting of the Society for Neuroscience; and an annual student-faculty retreat. During the last grant period, this training grant has allowed us to significantly expand our recruitment of high quality applicants, and further develop the training program and its curriculum. In addition, by increasing our visibility at both local and national levels, this training grant has provided the key stimulus for positive changes that broadly affect our neuroscience community. These have included the recruitment of additional neuroscience faculty, the development of new interdisciplinary research groups and training grants in specialized areas of neuroscience, and initiation of the process by which the Cincinnati Neuroscience Graduate Program will attain formal State of Ohio designation as an independent graduate degree (Ph.D.) program.
Showing the most recent 10 out of 29 publications
