Georgia State Launches $2-Million Neuroscience Program
Wednesday, August 25, 2004 - In its bid to develop more nationally recognized research and graduate education programs, Georgia State University has launched a new interdisciplinary initiative focusing on neuroscience and behavior. The Brains and Behavior Program, led by the Departments of Biology and Psychology in the College of Arts and Sciences and funded by a $1-2 million annual budget, brings together 68 faculty members from eight academic departments and five research centers to develop collaborative research and graduate education programs in neuroscience and behavior.
The program will consist of research groups that will conduct basic and applied studies in four areas. The Brain and Computers Group will examine interfaces that can be used in devices to help paralyzed people. The Neurons and Networks Group will study real and artificial neural networks to develop new computational devices and to understand mechanisms of biological computation. The Adaptability and Behavior Group will determine how neural development, learning, and life experiences such as drug abuse change brain circuits and behavior patterns. The Brains and Social Behaviors Group will study the neural and endocrine mechanisms of social behavior in conjunction with the Center for Behavioral Neuroscience (CBN), a National Science Foundation Science and Technology Center consisting of more than 90 neuroscientists at eight metro Atlanta colleges and universities.
“More than ever, research progress in neuroscience in behavior depends on successful collaborative research across many disciplines. The Brains and Behavior Program is designed to raise research and teaching at Georgia State to a level of national prominence through interdisciplinary collaboration. It will bring together faculty with expertise in device physics, computer science, mathematics, philosophy, biology, chemistry, and psychology to work collaboratively and train students on problems of common interest in neuroscience and behavior,” said Professor of Biology Donald Edwards, the program's director. “Brains and Behavior will be one of the few graduate education programs in the country based on such a broad interdisciplinary approach. Our hope is the program will provide a unique training environment for students from many disciplines and enable us to open new research frontiers in neuroscience and behavior.”
Edwards credited the CBN for establishing much of the groundwork that made possible the Brains and Behavior program. “CBN has brought neuroscience programs at Georgia State national recognition,” said Edwards, “and Brains and Behavior will enable us to go to the next level.” The Brains and Behavior program will eventually support 43 new graduate fellowships and 16 undergraduate assistantships. Ten annual seed grants of up to $30,000 each will be awarded to faculty teams who pursue collaborative interdisciplinary neuroscience research. Five new junior faculty positions and at least one eminent scholar position also are expected to be created for the program.
Edwards formerly directed the Center for Neural Communication and Computation and the Center for Behavioral Neuroscience's Aggression Collaboratory, which he led since its inception in 1999. He has also served as Georgia State's representative to the Georgia Research Alliance's Bioinformatics Cluster. His research is supported by the NSF and the National Institutes of Health. He also teaches courses in the area of cell and neurobiology and has published widely including in the journals Science, the Proceedings of the National Academy of Science and the Journal of Neuroscience. Edwards joined the university's Biology faculty in 1981.
Participating departments include Chemistry, Computer Science, Mathematics and Statistics, Philosophy, Physics and Astronomy, and Psychology in the College of Arts and Sciences, as well as Computer Information Systems in the Robinson College of Business. The CBN, the Center for Brain Sciences and Health, the Center for Neural Communication and Computation and the Language Research Center also will support the program.
Contributed by Poul Olson, Center for Behavioral Neuroscience |
