Prospective Students
Doctoral study in neuroscience is an incredibly rewarding and exciting undertaking. No other discipline probes the intricate machinery of the nervous system to address such fundamental issues as how we think, move, perceive, learn and remember. Following traditions established in the early 1950's, when modern efforts to understand the nervous system led to early breakthroughs in the treatment of many neurological and psychiatric disorders, neuroscience research continues to have an enormous clinical impact. Numerous neuroscientists have been recipients of the Nobel Prize over the last century.
Neuroscientists are employed in many different settings, ranging from universities and medical centers to government agencies and private industry. The training you receive, emphasizing analytical thinking and problem solving in a scientific environment, is applicable to numerous disciplines. The pharmaceutical and biotechnology industries hire many neuroscientists for productive and exciting careers developing new therapeutic agents for human betterment. Some go into government, patent law or the publishing industry. Regardless of the path, you will leave our program equipped with an education, research experience and way of thinking that will prepare you for a successful future.
All incoming graduate students will take a one-semester core course covering fundamentals of biochemistry, molecular biology, cell biology, physiology, microbiology, and immunology, giving the background necessary for all the advanced studies. After the first semester, students launch into courses specializing in their area of interest. By its very nature, neuroscience overlaps with many other disciplines and tracks within the Graduate School, such as Biochemistry, Aging, Cell Signaling, Metabolic Disorders, Integrated Physiology and Pharmacology. Many of the elective courses in the neuroscience program are taught jointly with one or more of these other tracks, and neuroscience students will be exposed to a broad variety of approaches. Students will be ready to take qualifying exams in the second year of their graduate career, having completed the basic neuroscience curriculum of Molecular, Cellular and Developmental Neuroscience in the spring semester of the first year, followed by Systems Neuroscience and Neuroanatomy in the fall semester of the second year. As the student’s research interests develop, numerous opportunities for advanced electives, journal clubs and special topics sessions will enhance their education, and both stimulate and challenge them intellectually. These and other enrichment opportunities are available to any enterprising graduate student. Formal didactic training ends after successfully passing the qualifying exam and advancing to candidacy, at which time the students engage in full time dissertation laboratory research.
The Graduate Training Program in Neuroscience at The University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio is an excellent environment, with a history of training successful neuroscientists for productive careers. Over 50 faculty from multiple departments in the Graduate, Medical and Dental Schools offer research opportunities that span the gamut from structure of ion channels and receptors, to growth factor signaling, to animal behavioral and cognition. We welcome you to explore our program.