Philosophy

Understanding the brain and mind is one of the great frontiers in modern science. Neuroscience research, the interdisciplinary effort to explore this frontier, has two main goals: to develop a detailed biological understanding of the brain and how it generates behavior and cognition, and to better understand, diagnose, and treat neurological disorders. Neuroscience involves study of the brain at multiple levels: from genetic and molecular signaling within neurons, to biophysical function of neurons and synapses, to computation by neural networks, to understanding how the brain performs complex behaviors like sensory perception, motor control, memory, emotion, language, and cognition.

The Neuroscience Graduate Program at UC Berkeley is a highly selective Ph.D. training program offering intensive training in neuroscience research through a combination of coursework, research training, mentoring, and professional development. More than 50 program faculty from many departments provide broad expertise from molecular and cellular neuroscience to systems and computational neuroscience, to human cognitive neuroscience.

Specific areas of research include analysis of ion channels, receptors, and signal transduction mechanisms; gene regulation; formation, function, and plasticity of synapses; development of neurons and circuits; mechanisms of sensory processing; motor control; principles of function of cerebral cortex; neural regulation of sleep; neural basis for learning and attention; and neural basis for human emotion, language, motor control, and other high-level cognitive processes. (For detailed information on faculty research interests, see the Faculty & Research page.)

A unique feature of the Neuroscience training at Berkeley is the highly interdisciplinary research environment. For instance, Neuroscientists work side-by-side in the lab with engineers and roboticists to study motor control, with bioengineers to grow stem cells for regenerative medicine and tissue engineering, and with chemists to develop new reagents for optical monitoring and control of neural activity. Neuroscience Program students are trained at these intersections between fields, and help drive scientific and technological advances.

The Neuroscience Graduate Program trains a select group of students (about 10 entering students per year) in an intellectually stimulating, interdisciplinary, and supportive environment. Since its official launch in 2000, the program has trained 64 students. Our applicants have outstanding undergraduate records in both research and scholarship from diverse academic disciplines, including biology, chemistry, psychology, physics, engineering and computer science. We carefully select students with the expectation that, given strong graduate training, they will develop into tomorrow’s leaders in the field of neuroscience. We welcome you to apply to our program.

Director's Statement

“Neuroscience has entered an era of rapid discovery at many levels, from genes and neurons to neural computation, mind and behavior. Often, the greatest advances occur at the interface between these levels. Our mission is to provide a unified neuroscience training program that provides rigorous training at multiple levels, with strong interaction between students and faculty across the entire spectrum of the field.”

John Ngai, Program Director
Professor, Dept. of Molecular & Cell Biology and Helen Wills Neuroscience Institute