Students have the opportunity to develop their research skills via hands-on experience in a number of lab courses: they can study animal behavior and physiology in the comparative animal physiology lab, human physiological processes and brain activity in the biopsychology lab, a brain's response to drugs in the microdialysis lab, or the communication and sensory abilities of various mammals in the comparative perception lab.
Indeed, many students make self-directed research a key component of their neuroscience studies. With the help of faculty members or on their own, many students pursue on-campus as well as off-campus internships in research labs.
Student projects in recent years include:
- Assessing the potential for the pattern recognition receptor TLR 9 to induce the production of the chemokine IP-10 in two distinct brain compartments
- Learning, Memory, and Social Behaviors in BTBR T+tf/J and C57BL/6J Mice
- The expression of serotonergic neurons in the developing nervous system of the larvae of the butterfly Vaness cardui
- Assessing serotonin and dopamine levels in specific brain regions of the autism mouse model BTBR T+tf/J
- Expression of muscle calcium binding proteins in freshwater crayfish