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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

Pengfei Song, Assistant Professor

Pengfei Song is an assistant professor and Y.T. Lo Faculty Fellow in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering who specializes in ultrasound imaging. Song first came across ultrasound while pursuing his BS in Biomedical Engineering at Huazhong University of Science and Technology. “There was this professor with some research projects focused on using MATLAB to perform image reconstruction,” he recalled. “I got really interested in that project, so I learned more about medical and ultrasound imaging.” Song then followed this interest in ultrasound from China to the United States,...

Alumni Spotlight

Scott Irwin

What field in Neuroscience did you study? I was fortunate enough to work in a laboratory where interesting questions were pursued no matter the field or technique needed to answer them. While the overall field was learning, memory, and neuroplasticity, this laboratory studied it with molecular, biological, anatomically, electrophysiological, and fMRI techniques, and I am sure I left some out. My specific focus was on the translation of mRNA at synapses in response to synaptic activity, and it happened to fortuitously overlap with a common clinical condition. Fortuitous for...

Publication Spotlight

Dynamic fluctuations in maternal cardiac vagal tone moderate moment-to-moment associations between children's negative behavior and maternal emotional support

Abstract Our primary objective was to examine the extent to which moment-to-moment associations between preschool-aged children's behavior and maternal emotional support differed for mothers showing different levels of parasympathetic engagement. We used behavioral observations of maternal and child behavior and maternal changes in cardiac vagal tone assessed via respiratory sinus arrhythmia in 15-s intervals during a 5-min challenging puzzle task (N = 121 dyads; 65 girls, Mage = 4.42 years). Results from multilevel models showed that increases in children's...

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.