What the Students Have to Say:

Neuroscience in General

With an undergraduate degree in biological psychology, I was faced with the decision to continue on to a graduate program in psychology or to cross over to a neuroscience program. I chose neuroscience because I felt that I would learn more about the relationship between the brain and behavior in an interdisciplinary field that includes not only psychology, but also biology, genetics, and medicine. I definitely feel that the breadth and depth of knowledge that I have acquired in the neuroscience program has prepared me to be a better scientist. -Christine Wu, Graduate Student in the Jagust Lab

This is arguably the most promising - and intellectually challenging - time to be entering the field of neuroscience since its inception. New technologies have revolutionized study of the brain from the macroscopic level (fMRI, and other imaging techniques) to the microscopic and even the molecular. Our ability to apply molecular biology techniques to neurobiology allows us to venture beyond descriptive studies, into the realm of true experiments. By manipulating neurochemistry to determine structural, functional, and even behavioral changes, we have entered a new era of understanding of how the brain works. Using new genomic technology, we can analyze changes in multiple genes simultaneously, increasing throughput of prior analyses by almost an order of magnitude. Through functional imaging, we can observe structural and metabolic changes that accompany cognitive disorders or normal processes. These advances, coupled with the continual growth of electrophysiology and cellular imaging techniques, provide ample research opportunities for those with an adventurous spirit.

However, this new and exciting environment offers formidable challenges for a prospective scientist. The proliferation of new information requires diligence and flexibility, as new avenues for knowledge are appearing constantly. The ability to see common themes in disparate fields is important, in order to recognize the unifying forces amidst the continual fragmentation of neuroscience. UC Davis offers the training for this new world. Faculty from varied backgrounds can offer training in a wide array of fields. Collaborations are frequent and hassle-free. And coursework spanning the range of topics in neuroscience - both old and new - is available to our students.

-Manu Hegde, MD/PhD student in the Gorin Lab Everybody wants to study neuroscience. I constantly read papers in which vanilla molecular biologists writing in Cell try to squeeze in a few paragraphs about the relevance of their work to processes in the brain. The brain is the single most complicated thing known to man--more complex then the interactions between galaxies, or events inside an atom. The brain has, what, 10 billion neurons? Many of which communicate with up to ten thousand of their neighbors? Who wouldn't want to study it? Philosophers, computer scientists, biologists, psychologists, doctors, have a all been nibbling away at our discipline in their own ways--why not come right out and call yourself a neuroscientist? -Noah Merin, MD/PhD Student in the Amaral Lab Back to What the Students Have to Say!