The Neuroscience PhD Training Program at the University of Colorado School of Medicine at the Anschutz Medical Campus provides multidisciplinary training covering the breadth of neurobiology, from neuronal gene regulation to the development, structure, and function of the nervous system. Students receive training in cellular and molecular neurobiology, neural development, neuropharmacology, and biochemistry, as well as hands-on training in a variety of state-of-the-art laboratory techniques.
The program is closely allied with other departments at the Health Sciences Center, giving students the opportunity to interact and learn from researchers and teachers of many backgrounds. The strength of the neuroscience research community has led to its designation as a "Center of Excellence" at the University of Colorado Denver.
The program's goal is to provide a broad and solid foundation of understanding in neuroscience, and to train critical thinkers who identify important problems, generate experimentally testable hypotheses, and who draw significant conclusions from the results of their ongoing research in a specific area of neuroscience. Students completing the requirements for the Neuroscience Ph.D. will be independent investigators prepared to make important contributions to research and to the education of future generations of neuroscientists.
After an initial period of coursework, students choose their specialty fields from a diverse list of possibilities, including:
- neural development
- synaptogenesis, axonal guidance, and the migration and differentiation of nerve cells in the brain.
- sensory systems and transduction in highly specialized sensory neurons.
- gene expression in brain function.
- neurochemical mechanisms of drug dependence.
- cognitive functions, in particular learning and memory.
- multidisciplinary study of ion channels in the nervous system.
- identity and release of neurotransmitters, transmitter-receptor interactions, and molecular signaling mechanisms.
- neural transplantation for Parkinson's, Alzheimer's, and Huntington's disease.
- mechanism of epilepsy.