Neural Systems and Behavior

Project Summary / Abstract Breakthroughs in our understanding of how the brain generates simple and complex behavior and how it malfunctions in neurological disease and pyschopathology require researchers who have a strong foundation in neuroscience and a deep understanding of the evolutionary contingencies of human neurobiology and behavior. Since its inception in 1978, the Neural Systems and Behavior (NS&B) course at the MBL in Woods Hole, MA, has been the premier course for this kind of interdisciplinary training in multi-level analysis of brain-behavior relationships. NS&B is an intensive, eight-week summer course that combines lectures, laboratory exercises, and student-directed research in a unique learning environment. The twenty course students typically come from diverse disciplines including neuroscience, animal behavior, psychology, mathematics, computer science, physics, and engineering. They range in their prior training from first year Ph.D. students to faculty members who are changing fields. The rigorous lectures by the best teachers and researchers in the field provide a solid foundation for understanding a wide range of subjects, from the basics of molecular genetics and neurogenomics to electrophysiology and signal processing, and even cognition. Visiting scholars provide further exposure to the most recent breakthroughs in the study of the neural basis of behavior and cognition. Lunch discussions about science, ethics, and career development constitute integral parts of the course. The laboratory exercises (modules) constitute the core of the course and occupy the majority of the students’ time, providing the students with hands-on experience using state of the art equipment addressing cutting-edge problems. The course is divided into four two-week cycles with different laboratory modules and sets of faculty, each building upon the prior experiences of the course. The modules encourage investigations at multiple levels of biological organization. To maximize learning of research concepts and techniques, the course uses an array of organisms and preparations to teach techniques and address questions relevant to behavior, the functioning of neural systems, and neural disease. By the end of each two-week cycle, the students have not only mastered complex techniques, they also have collected and analyzed data from a research project that they conceived and designed. The creativity and diversity of these projects are a singular feature of the NS&B course and have never been replicated in any other educational setting. Students find NS&B to be a life-changing event, not only because it is intellectually challenging and provides hands on training but also because of the uniquely supportive environment and networking opportunities that have been hallmarks of the course since its inception. Thus, this highly successful course provides immersive, hands-on training in state-of the-art research skills essential for fulfilling objective #1 of the NIMH Strategic Plan: “To define the mechanisms of complex behaviors” by focusing on neural mechanisms of behavior across the spectrum from single cells to circuits to the whole organism.