Vedicdude

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neural_engineering

Neural engineering is a relatively new engineering field.....so there isn't enough info on the education requirements in order to become an neural engineer.

But I assume since it is a branch of neuroscience that you at least get a bachelors degree in neuroscience. Then what do you do in graduate school? Do you continue into a PhD in neuroscience? Or do you go to engineering school? Or is there an emerging neural engineering graduate program? And is there any plans to make an undergraduate neural engineering bachelor's degree like some schools do with software engineering?

live-

Neural engineering is a subdiscipline of biomedical engineering. So that's what you'd go to school for. Undergraduate you'd probably be best off with biological engineering with maybe a minor in electrical engineering or biomedical (if your school has it). Graduate, obviously biomedical engineering.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biomedical_engineering

scorp

go for biomedical undergrad/grad etc.
Check out this: (It's part of the JHU BME department)
http://neuroengineering.bme.jhu.edu/

Nerd^2

I'm a future neuroengineer, and I'm doing a computer engineering major. The major labs in NE all draw heavily upon CE and EE-- see Boyden's lab at MIT, Brains in Silicon at Stanford, and Thakor's lab at JHU. I plan to do CE undergraduate and probably BME graduate (though neuroscience is an option).

Ctheflute

I'm also a future neural engineer - finishing up my junior year in Biomedical Engineering (with a concentration in Bioelectricity) and trying to figure out my best options for graduate school. Fun times! :-)

There are definitely a few routes to go to end up in neural engineering. Biomedical Engineering, Computer Engineering, and Electrical Engineering are probably your best options. In my experience neuroscience programs don't often spend much time on the interfacing of technology and neuroscience. If you're interested in a biomedical engineering program, look at the specialties that schools offer. Many schools only have biomechanics and tissue engineering, but more are starting to add neural engineering or bioelectricity concentrations. MIT, JHU, Case Western, Northwestern, Duke, and Arizona State are a few of the schools that I know of with strong connections to neural engineering.

As far as graduate schools, Biomedical engineering programs are probably the best route. Some schools have started interdisciplinary programs that share resources between medical schools, physiology dept., BME dept., and neuroscience department that are also probably quite good. All of the schools on the above list also offer graduate degrees where it's possible to get a decent neural engineering education (also some schools like Mayo Medical College have good programs as well).

scorp

JHU's undergraduate neuroscience is also very popular. But I imagine you want a math, chemistry, and engineering heavy major. Which you can make neuroscience into if you wish.

Our knowledge of the human body is finally reaching a point where we can apply engineering techniques to fix it or modify it. It's an exciting time to be a college student.

Vedicdude

But I can still qualify to go into neural engineering with a neuroscience degree, correct? Since neural engineering is also a sub-field of neuroscience;

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neurosc...f_Neuroscience

Ctheflute

The short answer is: yes, most likely.

The long answer is: Most neural engineering research is currently being done at academic institutions (or companies that have originated from research labs at universities). In most cases, the people working on neural engineering projects have advanced degrees with specific research experience in similar projects. Since this is true, there is no set requirements for what one's undergraduate major might be. Plenty of students get graduate degrees in a field that is not exactly what their undergraduate education focused on. The best way for any individual to break into neural engineering is to gain experience in a lab doing neural engineering research (through a summer program, as a graduate student, etc). A student in neuroscience or biomedical engineering will have to go through essentially the same process...the neuroscience major will probably have to become more familiarized with computer programming and analysis, while the biomedical engineering major may have to focus more on learning advanced neurophysiology.

scorp

Vedicdude, yes but again, make sure that you take a lot of math courses (Calc I-III, DiffEq, Lin Alg, Prob/Stats, etc) as well as a lot of chemistry, physics, and engineering courses.

It might be the case that the neuroscience major includes all those courses, but changes are that it does not.

Vedicdude

Alright, great! Because I am very passionate about neuroscience because I love studying about the mind and the physical processes that makes it what it is . And of course........I am very interested in mind engineering.....so of course I want to be a neural engineer.

So if I take enough math and physics courses, neuroscience will be fine, right? That is great to hear!

Vedicdude

BTW, should I stay in neuroscience for graduate studies if I want to become a neural engineer? Or should I study something else for graduate school? I'de rather stay in neuroscience if I can .

csquare

I'm going to do my undergrad major in BME, and I also want to go to grad school later for a PhD in neural engineering or BME. I was just wondering if most schools will pay your tuition and whatever other fees for PhDs in these areas?

awin422

does anyone know what the salary of a neural engineer would be about? Also, I would assume that most careers are focused in academia, correct? Or can you use this for companies, ect?

jessiehl

There's definitely a place for it in biotech. What exactly you can do depends on your subfield.

You can come at neural engineering from practically any natural science or engineering field and nobody will look askance - I'm not sure that, say, astronomy, would work, or civil engineering, but physics, chem, bio, neuro, math, EE, CompE, CS, ChemE, MechE, EE, MatE, Bio/BME, are all fine, and I'm sure I've left some possibilities out. Some majors will be better for some subfields, though.

In addition to the obvious grad programs (the ones that have "neural" or "engineering" in the title), look into Ed Boyden's Neuroengineering & Neuromedia lab at the MIT Media Lab. He was one of Tech Review's top 35 innovators under 35. He was originally a physicist, incidentally.

trapwater

What minors and majors do you guys recommend I take to becoming a neural engineer?