D. through UAB's School of Medicine. The program has 35 faculty members with active research programs from a broad range of areas in contemporary neuroscience with a major focus on topics of biomedical importance. Molecular, cellular and biophysical approaches are emphasized to address fundamental problems of brain function, development and disease. All students take a series of graduate courses in biochemistry and molecular biology, cell biology, ion channel biophysics, synaptic function, developmental neurobiology and medical neurobiology. In addition to the core curriculum, students perform a series of three laboratory rotations, they select from a series of advanced elective courses including receptor and ion channel kinetics, synaptic plasticity, intracellular signaling and the biology of neurological and psychiatric disease.
Students also participate in journal clubs, student presentations and a visiting speaker's program.
Students are encouraged to attend national and international neuroscience meetings throughout their graduate training. A thesis advisor is selected by students at the end of the first year. Students take a departmental qualifying examination and present a thesis proposal in the second year. The Ph.D. is awarded after the defense of the final dissertation, usually in the fourth or fifth year. The Department of Neurobiology is housed in the Civitan International Research Center building, built in 1992, with laboratories outfitted by major national foundations including the Lucille P. Markey Foundation and the W.M. Keck Foundation.