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Neuroscience Graduate Program

The NSP at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign is an interdisciplinary program of study and research leading to the doctoral degree.

We offer a rigorous yet flexible program designed to foster the growth of the student through research activities, close interactions with faculty, and exposure to top neuroscientists through our seminar series and attendance at professional meetings.

Neuroscience Program Events Calendar

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Neuroscience News

Honey bee larvae can't smell - and that's actually a good thing

BEESEarth.com (Telluride, Colo., July 16) — Gene Robinson, Illinois entomology professor and executive director and CEO of the Discovery Partners Institute, led a study seeking to understand if a young bee never has to find its own food, does it still need to smell the world around it? “Larval...

Artificial Intelligence: Enabling More Sustainable Labs

ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCETechnology Networks (with audio; Suffolk, England, May 6) — Jimeng Sun, a computer science professor at the U. of I., used training data from over 8,000 past trials to predict the outcome of more than 3,400 recent drug studies in a prediction model. “All this...

Steve Maren, Director, Beckman Institute

The surprising scientific benefits behind memory manipulation

Today we know that our brains re-write our memories each time we recall them, but what if we could control that process? We're exploring the science of memory manipulation, which could transform treatments for Alzheimer's, PTSD, and more. To answer our questions, KCBS Radio news anchor Steve Scott...

Researchers receive $2.7M NIH grant to investigate effects of phthalate exposure on neurodevelopment

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Monitoring stress from the surface of the body

"Today, my laboratory looks more like a scene from a sci-fi film than a psychology research space. Wires snake across tables, sensors lay carefully arranged on trays, and a bucket of ice water sits in the corner, quietly waiting its turn." Manuel Hernandez is an NSP faculty member and...

Can Doing Crosswords, Puzzles, and Other Games Really Help You Stay Sharp?

Engaging your brain can have benefits—but not all mental exercises are created equal.Can Brain Games Really Preserve Cognition?When it comes to your brain, there’s some truth to the saying “use it or lose it,” experts said. “Your brain is an organ, and if you’re not using all parts...

Faculty Spotlight

Eva Fischer

How would you describe your background? (I.E. Where are you from? How did you first get interested in your area of research? Etc.) I grew up in Colorado, and then I went to undergrad on the east coast. I really wanted to live somewhere with deciduous trees, having grown up with a bunch of pine trees. When I started college, I had a lot of different interests and I wasn't really that sure what I wanted to do. So definitely not one of those people who knew from day one what they wanted to be when they grew up. I took a range of classes. I was taking some...

Alumni Spotlight

Karla Melendez

What field in Neuroscience did you study?What about the research process did you enjoy? Did you prefer gathering the data, brainstorming its meaning, the writing process, defending your research, presenting your research, etc. I studied auditory neuroscience, specifically how little brown bats process communication signals. I preferred the writing process, defending and presenting my research vs. gathering and analyzing data. I felt that the latter was quite tedious, and it was much more exciting once I was able to share my findings. Did you choose to continue doing research? Why or why not...

Publication Spotlight

Separation of item and context in item-method directed forgetting

Abstract Contextual information plays a critical role in directed forgetting (DF) of lists of items, whereas DF of individual items has been primarily associated with item-level processing. This study was designed to investigate whether context processing also contributes to the forgetting of individual items. Participants first viewed a series of words, with task-irrelevant scene images (used as “context tags”) interspersed between them. Later, these words reappeared without the scenes and were followed by an instruction to remember or forget that word. Multivariate pattern analyses of fMRI...

South Quad - McFarland Carillon Memorial Bell Tower

Land Acknowledgement

As a land-grant institution, the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign has a responsibility to acknowledge the historical context in which it exists. We are currently on the lands of the Peoria, Kaskaskia, Peankashaw, Wea, Miami, Mascoutin, Odawa, Sauk, Mesquaki, Kickapoo, Potawatomi, Ojibwe, and Chickasaw Nations. It is necessary for us to acknowledge these Native Nations and for us to work with them as we move forward as an institution with Native peoples at the core of our efforts.

More about the practice of land acknowledgements at the University of Illinois.