This application seeks continuation of support for nine predoctoral positions on our training grant, 'Early Stage Training in the Neurosciences'. This training grant serves as the centerpiece in an integrated plan of support for pre-candidate students in the Interdepartmental Neuroscience Graduate Program at the University of Michigan. The first two years of this training program ensure that all students graduate as broadly trained neuroscientists. In the first year, students take an intensive lab course, an interdisciplinary course in the principles of neuroscience, human neuroanatomy, statistics, and a course in research responsibility and ethics, in addition to performing two laboratory research rotations. During their second year, students take elective courses, participate in a seminar course in which they give an oral presentation, complete their lab rotations and begin the initial work on the doctoral thesis. Once students complete pre-candidate training, they perform full-time doctoral research in the laboratory of one of 98 different training faculty members. Approximately half of these faculty members hold appointments in basic science departments, and the other half hold appointments in clinical departments. In both the classroom and laboratory, our students are exposed a broad range of research topics including Cellular and Molecular Neurobiology, Developmental Neurobiology and Regeneration, Clinical and Translational Neuroscience, Sensory and Computational Neuroscience, Behavioral, Affective, and Integrative Neuroscience, and Cognitive Neuroscience and Neuropsychiatry. Upon completion of their training, our graduates are poised to tackle a host of public health issues from the molecular basis of neurodegenerative disorders to brain circuit abnormalities in psychiatric disease. The University of Michigan is proud of its history of recruiting and training underrepresented minority students. The Neuroscience Graduate Program strives to increase the diversity of its trainees, and we describe our accomplishments and a detailed plan for recruiting and retaining underrepresented minorities. We also present detailed plans for the evaluation of the program and for instruction in the responsible conduct of research. This training grant is critical to the success of the Neuroscience Program's training mission. It has provided support for roughly 40% of the students admitted to the program in the last 4 years, and has supported roughly half of the current students in the program at one point in their training. The training grant supports a variety of trainee-related activities including classroom laboratory training, student travel to scientific conferences, and speakers at neuroscience symposia and colloquia. This training grant is key to our recruitment of outstanding students and their educational success.
This is an application to support Early Stage Neuroscience training for students in the University of Michigan Neuroscience Graduate Program. One of the oldest of its kind, this interdisciplinary training program is essential to for the development of the next generation of laboratory scientists capable of using state-of-the-art methodologies to understand the normal and disordered function of the brain and nervous system. Trainees in this program are poised to tackle a host of public health issues from the molecular basis of neurodegenerative disorders to the brain circuit abnormalities in psychiatric disease.
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