Neuroscience

Total Courses Required

11.5

Core Courses

BIO 101, CHEM 120, CSC 121, PSY 100, PSY 214 or MATH 141

Other Required Courses

BIO 382; PSY 300 or PSY 301; NEUR 320; NEUR 341

Two courses with at least one at the 300 or 400 level from: BIO 203, BIO 241, BIO 320, BIO 325, BIO 314, BIO 315, BIO 335, BIO 381, BIO 385, BIO 415, CHEM 240, CHEM 343, CSC 233, CSC 320, CSC 330, CSC 360, KINS 254, KINS 350, KINS 410, NEUR 348, NEUR 349, PHIL 234, PHIL 360, PHYS 270, PHYS 370, PHYS 380, PSY 232, PSY 256, PSY 280, PSY 281, PSY 330, PSY 331, PSY 348, PSY 349, PSY 350, PSY 380, PSY 381, SOC 315.

For students planning to attend graduate or professional school, independent or student-faculty collaborative research is highly recommended for Neuroscience majors. Relevant experience can be gained through an on/off campus summer research placement or by conducting student-faculty collaborative research during the academic year.

Number 300 & 400 Level Courses

5

Senior Requirement & Capstone Experience

NEUR 480/481 Senior Capstone (1 cr. or 2 cr.)

For the Senior Capstone, Neuroscience majors will complete a grant application that describes a novel program of research. The grant application will conform to NIH F31 Individual NRSA for PhD Students (http://grants.nih.gov/grants/forms_page_limits.htm#fell) and be completed in the fall or spring of the final year.

Students wishing to conduct an empirical thesis should complete NEUR 480 in the Fall semester and NEUR 481 in the Spring semester. NEUR 481 will involve the collection of data for an experiment proposed in NEUR 480. The results of this research will be reported in a manuscript and in an oral presentation.

Additional Information

No more than two courses from off-campus programs can count toward the major. Neuroscience majors are encouraged to also take courses in physics and additional courses in computer science depending upon their career interests.

Writing in the Major

Writing in the Neuroscience major is distributed across the curriculum beginning with introductory core courses in biology, chemistry, computer science, and psychology, and continuing in upper level courses representing multiple disciplines. The interdisciplinary nature of Neuroscience means that students should learn to communicate their science to varying audiences. As an example, writing for an audience grounded in the biological tradition can be quite different from writing for an audience grounded in the psychological tradition. The requirement to complete 300 level coursework in Biology and Psychology will ensure that students are exposed to, and gain experience with, communicating to audiences in two of the principle disciplines related to Neuroscience. Within these courses, students will gain experience writing a variety of different kinds of documents (e.g., laboratory reports, reports the findings of an empirical study, integrative reviews of the literature). For instance, laboratory reports represent a key writing component of required 300 level coursework in Biology and Psychology. Additionally, an integrative review of the literature is a fundamental component of the grant application written for the Neuroscience Capstone. Given the deep public interests in Neuroscience, it is also important that majors learn to responsibly communicate the findings and implications of science to a lay audience. The development of this skill will begin in Neuroscience and Behavior (PSY 300/301), be reinforced in the Junior Neuroscience Seminar (NEUR 320), and represents a component of the grant application written for the Neuroscience Capstone (NEUR 480/481). As an example, in the Junior Neuroscience Seminar, students may be asked to identify a recent empirical article related to their interests and prepare a press release describing the results of the study for a lay or general professional audience.