Official Title:
"Neuroscience Training in Drug Abuse Research"
Training Grant Director:
Virginia S. Seybold, Ph.D
Professor
Department of Neuroscience
6-145 Jackson Hall
321 Church St., S.E.
Minneapolis, MN 55455
ginger@med.umn.edu
Eligibility:
Predoctoral and postdoctoral trainees are funded by a USPHS institutional
training grant. Trainees supported on this grant must be United
States citizens or permanent residents.
Goals:
The goal of this program is to provide an institutional training
program that combines a broadly based curricular training in Neuroscience
with research training focused upon neuroscience-oriented approaches
to substance abuse. Our program provides this training in the context
of the interdepartmental Graduate Program in Neuroscience, traditional
departmental graduate programs in the basic health sciences and
a research environment which is characterized by a critical mass
of NIDA-supported investigators who have a productive history of
collaborative, interlaboratory research.
The training program capitalizes on 5 arenas of trainer-trainee
interaction: curriculum, research training, seminars, a retreat,
and travel to scientific meetings. The curriculum is based on the
graduate program in Neuroscience, of which our trainers are major
participants. The curriculum emphasizes cellular and molecular,
systems, and behavioral components of neuroscience, and a course
in Neuroscience Principles of Drug Abuse. Participation in a lecture/discussion
course on neuroscience principles of drug abuse is required of all
trainees.
Predoctoral trainees pursue either a Ph.D. in Neuroscience or minor
in Neuroscience with a Ph.D. in a departmentally-based graduate
program. Postdoctoral training by its nature is more customized
and varied according to trainer and trainee. In principle, research
conducted by postdoctoral trainees should include collaborative
efforts between laboratories so as to insure an experimental neuroscience
perspective.
Training in research is under the direction of 14 faculty members.
The research encompassed by trainers spans behavior to molecular
studies of problems associated with drug abuse. Research emphases
of the training faculty include signal transduction pathways of
receptors activated by abused substances, neuroplasticity, and long-term
changes in neuronal circuits underlying motivation and reward. Mechanisms
underlying attenuation of pain and design of novel therapeutic interventions
are additional emphases. Research training is enriched by the tradition
of collaboration among trainers of this program.
Additional Information:
See www.neuroscience.umn.edu
for descriptions of faculty research.
Faculty Trainers:
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