Program Overview

Neuroscience Program

The Graduate Certificate in Neuroscience is an exciting program offered by the Department of Biology, with new courses launched in the Fall of 2018. This program bridges many levels of nervous system organization and function, from single nerve cells to behavior and cognition.

Program Description

Students will be introduced to the cell and molecular biology, biophysics, and electrophysiology of nerve cells and synapses. They will learn how these properties give rise to neural circuit and systems function, and how computational and signal processing approaches are used to understand neural coding and information processing in the brain. The fundamental biological and computational principles that govern brain function can then be applied to understand diagnostic and therapeutic approaches and instrumentation, including functional electrical stimulation, optical and functional imaging techniques, and neural prosthetics.

Target Audience

As many aspects of neuroscience are rooted in the basic biology of the nervous system, the program is well suited to students with a biology background. However, neuroscience is inherently multidisciplinary in both fundamental and applied approaches. Therefore, students with backgrounds in computational and mathematical principles of coding and information processing, or engineering applications, are also well matched.

Related MS Degree

The related MS degree for this program is Biology.

Curriculum

To complete the program, students must choose at least two courses from the following list:

• BIOL 640: Cellular Neurophysiology (3 credits)
• BIOL 641: Systems Neuroscience (3 credits)
• BIOL 645: Biological Imaging Techniques (3 credits)
• BME 661: Neural Engineering (3 credits)
• BME 668: Medical Imaging Systems (3 credits)
• MATH 615: Approaches to Quantitative Analysis in the Life Sciences (3 credits)

After accumulating at least six credits, students can choose course(s) from the following list:

• BIOL 635: Intro to Comp Neuroscience (3 credits)
• BIOL 636: Advanced Comp Neuroscience (3 credits)
• BIOL 672: Computational Systems Biology (3 credits)

Program Credits

The program requires a total of 12 credits.