About
Like the inner workings of the brain itself, Neuroscience synthesizes discovery from diverse sources of knowledge. Accordingly, neuroscience is truly an interdisciplinary experience. The undergraduate curriculum in neuroscience at Duke University reflects this perspective and challenges students to explore knowledge derived from three levels of analysis:
- molecules within the cells of nervous systems
- neural circuits within which cells are organized and interconnected
- behaviors that emerge from the functions of neural circuits and systems of interacting circuits, including human cognition.
A comprehensive understanding of nerve cells and nervous systems requires learning at each of these levels of analysis. But what makes neuroscience such an exciting adventure is the integration of discovery from the molecular and cellular perspective through the operations of neural circuits to the actions motivated by underlying cellular and synaptic activities. This curriculum in neuroscience will provide a journey of discovery across scale, making this major one of the most satisfying endeavors that an education in liberal arts and sciences can offer.
Now more than ever, the broad impact of discovery in neuroscience is extending beyond the traditional academic disciplines where the brain sciences emerged. There is new dialogue and collaboration among neuroscientists and experts in law, business, social sciences, philosophy, the arts, and the humanities. Accordingly, the Duke curriculum in neuroscience for majors (Bachelor of Science or Bachelor of Arts) and minors reflects this broadening interdisciplinary platform for discovery and learning, with a rich offering of learning experiences that reflect the exciting growth of neuroscience and its increasing relevance to real-world problems.
One of the great strengths of this new major is that it provides rich opportunities for undergraduate students to study brain science with faculty from a number of diverse disciplines and perspectives. Thus, the undergraduate curriculum in neuroscience is truly a joint, interdisciplinary major that draws faculty and courses from many individual departments, chiefly the Department of Psychology and Neuroscience and the Department of Biology, both of which are in Trinity College of Arts and Sciences. There are also important contributions from the Department of Neurobiology in the Duke University School of Medicine and the Biomedical Engineering Department in the Pratt School of Engineering at Duke University. Administrative support for this curriculum is provided by Trinity College and the Duke Institute for Brain Sciences.
So browse the links in the panel to the right, and contact or visit the support team for undergraduates interested in neuroscience in the new space for the Duke Institute for Brain Sciences, LSRC B123.
