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| A Brainy Option - Neuroscience |
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| Neuroscience is an interdisciplinary field which involves many levels of study |
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Think of Isaac Newton getting hit on the head with an apple or Alexander Graham Bell inventing the telephone. While these creative or "Aha!" moments are often associated with scientific discoveries and inventions, most people occasionally feel the thrill of insight when a solution that had eluded them suddenly becomes obvious. But what is really going on in the brain when the light bulb goes off? This occurs when a striking increase in neural activity happens in a specific area of the right hemisphere, according to a recent study by a team of cognitive neuroscientists.
The breadth of subject areas that fall into the classification of neuroscience is possibly the widest in the biomedical sciences. Neuroscience is a field of study which deals with the structure, function, development, genetics, biochemistry, physiology, pharmacology and pathology of the nervous system. The study of behaviour and learning is also a division of neuroscience. A Neuroscientist is the general term for someone who studies the nervous system. A Neuroanatomist studies the structure (anatomy) of the nervous system; a Neurobiologist studies the biology of the nervous system; a Neurochemist studies the chemistry (for example, neurotransmitters) of the nervous system; a Neurological Surgeon is an M.D. who performs surgery on the nervous system (brain, spinal, nerves); a Neurologist diagnoses and treats disorders of the nervous system; Cognitive Neuroscientists are committed to the development of the mind and undertake brain research aimed at investigating the psychological, computational, and neuroscientific bases of cognition.
What do I have to do?
The biological study of the human brain is an interdisciplinary field which involves many levels of study, from the molecular level through the cellular level (individual neurons), the level of relatively small assemblies of neurons like cortical columns, that of larger subsystems like that which subserve visual perception, up to large systems like the cerebral cortex or the cerebellum, and at the highest level the nervous system as a whole. At this highest level, neuroscientific approaches combine with cognitive science to create cognitive neuroscience, a discipline first populated mostly by cognitive psychologists, currently becoming a dynamic speciality of its own. Research in the neurosciences may be broadly classified into five categories. Cellular and Molecular Neurobiology, Behavioural and Systems Neurobiology, Cognitive Neuroscience, Computational Neuroscience and Neural Engineering and the Neuroscience of Ageing.
What should I study?
Most programmes of neurosciences are offered at the postgraduate level. For the M.Sc programme in neuroscience, you need a Bachelors degree in any of the sciences or in any subject related to the general area neurosciences (e.g. psychology) or MBBS/BE/B.Tech degree. The neuroscience programme has a strong emphasis on cellular and molecular mechanisms that mediate the function and development of the nervous system. Training in neurobiology is provided through a combination of research, course work and seminars. For a Ph.D. in neuroscience, you should have a Masters degree in any branch of science related to the general area of neurosciences/brain research with a consistently good academic record. Candidates are also considered from diverse backgrounds such as Biological Sciences, Physical, Mathematical, Computer Sciences and Psychology or MBBS/BK/BTech/MR/M.Tech/M.Pharma or equivalent with good academic records. Research opportunities are available in areas such as the development of sensory and motor systems, regeneration, pathway finding by axons, synaptic function and plasticity, neurotrophin gene expression and trophic regulation, ageing, neuronglial interactions, simple neural circuits and neural modelling, regulation of neurotransmitter and receptor expression and neurogenetics.
The prospects
Computational neuroscience is a new and emerging inter-disciplinary area of research that combines insights from various disciplines such as computer science, neurescience, mathematics, statistics, artificial intelligence and psychology.
Prospects in the field of neuroscience are linked to genetic engineering and its interconnection with molecular imaging. The second, and a closely related one, is cell engineering, which deals with quantitative modelling and the study of how a cell functions, both individually and in a group: cell signalling is an important subtopic that demands the attention of systems scientists.
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