About us:
Understanding the biological bases of behavior is one of the most significant modern challenges to researchers in psychology and neuroscience. Faculty in the Neuroscience and Behavior program seek to examine the complex interplay between the brain, behavior and environment, utilizing multiple levels of scientific analysis. Our faculty in animal behavioral neuroscience are leaders in their respective specialties, such as behavioral neuroendocrinology, communication, biological rhythms, and learning and memory. Faculty in human cognitive neuroscience include top authors and members of organizations such as the National Academy of Sciences and the Society of Experimental Psychologists.
Graduate students in the Neuroscience and Behavior program have access to the most modern research tools for studying the brain and behavior, within the laboratories of some of the nation’s finest researchers. Our program offers a unique educational opportunity in a friendly, collegial, and intellectually rigorous environment, where collaborations within the vast UCSD neuroscience community are welcome. If you think you would make a good candidate for our graduate program, please browse the faculty research summaries below and contact those whose interests most match yours.
Faculty
Adam Aron, Assistant Professor, (starting November, 2006), employs MRI and Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation as well as the study of neuropsychological patients to address a range of questions related to cognitive control. He is interested, in particular, in how frontal/basal-ganglia circuits are engaged during cognition and in how pathology of these circuits relates to neuropsychiatric conditions such as impulse control disorders. He welcomes contact from potential graduate students, research assistants and postdocs interested in cognitive neuroscience. email
Stephan Anagnostaras, Assistant Professor, combines molecular-genetic, systems, and cognitive-behavioral analyses to understand how the brain produces behavior and cognition. His work emphasizes the mechanims in the hippocampal-neocortical memory system in the hope of advancing our understanding of memory, cognition, and drug addiction. email
Karen Dobkins, Professor, has the goal of understanding visual perception in terms of underlying neural mechanisms, with an emphasis on development and plasticity of visual perception. As a means of exploring the link between neural function and visual perception, her work focuses particularly on visual motion and color perception. email
Timothy Gentner, Assistant Professor, examines the neural mechanisms that govern the sensory, perceptual, and cognitive processing of natural sounds, especially animal communication signals. Research topics address questions about neural coding, representational plasticity, pattern recognition, and the decision mechanisms that guide natural behaviors. His research draws on experimental techniques, including electrophysiology, neuroanatomy, immunohistochemistry, learning, and computational neuroscience. email
Michael Gorman, Associate Professor, is a biopsychologist with interests in biological rhythms and behavioral neuroendocrinology. His recent work addresses the roles of the light environment and the hormone melatonin in controlling annual variations in reproduction and behavior, and the functional organization of the circadian clock mechanisms. He also pursues scholarly work on the development of sexual orientation in humans. email
Vilayanur Ramachandran, Professor Dr. Ramachandran's major areas of research are: cognitive neuroscience, behavioral neurology - the study of cognitive and perceptual deficits in human neurological patients, neural plasticity and "phantom limbs", stroke rehabilitation, human visual perception/cognition, and visual psychophysics. email
Larry Squire, Professor Dr. Squire’s interest is in the organization and structure of mammalian memory in terms of anatomy and function at the level of neural systems and cognition. His research draws on the traditions of neuroscience, neuropsychology, and cognitive science. Part of that research involves studies of identified patients with amnesia to provide useful information about the structure and organization of normal memory. In addition, the facility for functional imaging at UCSD is affording the possibility of studying brain systems of human memory in normal subjects. This technology opens a new era of investigation into the brain systems of human memory. Dr. Squire also studies rodents, particularly with respect to questions about the anatomy of memory and the function of the brain systems that support memory. This work is done under the leadership of Dr. Robert Clark. email
