Quantitative approaches have a long history in the neurosciences, having contributed to the extraordinary progress made in understanding nervous system function at all levels of biological organization--from genes to behavior. Now, investigators from a variety of disciplines are beginning to incorporate engineering approaches in analyzing brain function, manipulating brain function, and building devices that duplicate or repair function lost in the injured brain. Into this rapidly evolving field of study, Yale proposes an Interdisciplinary Graduate Training Program in Neuroengineering. This proposal comes at an auspicious and important time in Yale's history: a new department of biomedical engineering was just formed, with a new research building under construction; a new center for magnetic resonance research was just opened with state-of-the-art research imaging capabilities; and the highly collaborative neuroscience community has grown to account for more than half of the university's biomedical research activity. Predoctoral students in the Neuroengineering Program would benefit from all of these institutional resources. By bringing 19 faculty members--representing 7 different departments and a large base of federally-supported individual and team grants--together in a unified training effort, the Neuroengineering program will: 1) prepare a group of scientists by full immersion in the disciplines of biomedical engineering and neuroscience; 2) create a new and vibrant interdisciplinary community at Yale; 3) develop new didactic courses and curriculum approaches for this field of study; and 4) implement a team approach for using quantitative biomedical engineering methods for solving complex problems in neuroscience. The students trained in this interdisciplinary program will be uniquely prepared to contribute to the academic and industrial workforce, and to speed progress towards diagnosis, treatment, and prevention of disease in the nervous system.
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