(12 credits)

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

Who would be suited to take this program?

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: Biology.

Curriculum

Choose at least two courses from this list:

BIOL 640Cellular Neurophysiology3
BIOL 641Systems Neuroscience3
BIOL 645Biological Imaging Techniques3
BME 661Neural Engineering3
BME 668Medical Imaging Systems3
MATH 615Approaches to Quantitative Analysis in the Life Sciences3

Choose course(s) from this list after accumulating at least six credits:

BIOL 635Intro to Comp Neuroscience3
BIOL 636Advanced Comp Neuroscience3
BIOL 672Computational Systems Biology3