Best Neuroscience Programs?

calvinnnnn · June 30, 2007, 10:47pm

wheres the best neuroscience program in each state? is there a hidden gem somewhere??

world_changer · June 30, 2007, 10:48pm

I’ve heard good things about Emory.

GatorEng23 · June 30, 2007, 11:00pm

Here are the NRC Rankings for neuroscience -

1 Cal San Diego 
2 Yale 
3 Harvard 
4 Cal San Francisco 
5 Stanford 
6 Columbia 
7 Johns Hopkins 
8 Washington (St. Louis) 
9 Cal Berkeley 
10 Penn 
11 Cal Tech 
12 Washington 
13 Rockefeller 
14 MIT 
15 UCLA 
16 Duke 
17 Case Western 
18 Michigan 
19 Brandeis 
20 Baylor College of Medicine 
21 Cal Irvine 
22 Chicago 
23 Northwestern 
24 Cornell 
25 Wisconsin 
26 North Carolina 
27 Albert Einstein College of Med 
28 SUNY Stony Brook 
29 Vanderbilt 
30 Virginia 
31 Oregon 
32 Iowa 
33 Emory 
34 Minnesota 
35 Mayo Graduate School 
36 Texas Southwestern Med Ctr 
37 Southern Cal 
38 Colorado 
39 Pittsburgh 
40 Illinois 
41 Texas Medical Galveston 
42 Rochester 
43 Colorado State 
44 Rutgers 
45 Arizona 
46 Connecticut 
47 Texas 
48 Georgetown 
49 Texas Health Sci Ctr Houston 
50 Medical College of Pensylvania 
51 Tennessee Memphis 
52 Brown 
53 Ohio State 
54 NYU 
55 Rutgers Newark 
56 Tufts 
57 Florida 
58 Massachusetts 
59 Wake Forest 
60 Florida State 
61 Michigan State 
62 Hahnemann 
63 SUNY Buffalo 
64 Penn State 
65 Wayne State 
66 SUNY Health Brooklyn 
67 CUNY 
68 Syracuse 
69 Purdue 
70 Uniformed Services U of Hlth Sci 
71 SUNY Albany 
72 Miami 
73 New Mexico 
74 Albany Medical College 
75 Kent State 
76 George Washington 
77 Oregon State 
78 Oklahoma 
79 Missouri 
80 Medical College of Ohio 
81 Ohio 
82 Louisville 
83 LSU 
84 Georgia State 
85 Wyoming 
86 East Carolina Medicine 
87 Loma Linda 
88 Montana State 
89 Kansas State 
90 Cal Santa Cruz 
91 Cal Santa Barbara 
92 Texas Woman’s 
93 Clark 
94 Boston University 
95 Idaho 
96 Puerto Rico Rio Piedras 
97 Northern Arizona 
98 Miami

world_changer · June 30, 2007, 11:07pm

^As there are medical colleges on there, I’m under the impression that this is a graduate level list.

If not, of the top 20, it seems that the easiest to get into would be Washington and Case.

calvinnnnn · June 30, 2007, 11:14pm

but then if i were to do pre-med. yale, vard, and stanford in the top 10 would be the “easiest” to get into their respective med programs?

calvinnnnn · June 30, 2007, 11:27pm

but ive also heard that the university of texas at dallas had a good neuroscience program. dunno how correct that statement is now… did anyone hear the same thing?

SHS_Spartan · June 30, 2007, 11:52pm

Washington State University is also very good.

illinois_kid · July 1, 2007, 1:21am

I’ll be starting at Northwestern this fall and I’ll be doubling in biology with a neuroscience concentration and psychology (focusing more on the cognitive side). Here are my suggestions:

Well first, a lot of the top schools on the NRC list for neuro are strong at the undergrad level as well. Examples include MIT, JHU, Duke, Caltech, Washington University in St. Louis, Stanford, Penn, Yale, Harvard. While all are large, private research universities, many of them offer plenty of research opportunities for undergrads and have strong programs at the undergrad level. But here are my suggestions (in no real order):

Harvard, Yale, MIT, Caltech, Stanford, JHU, Wash U. St. Louis, Duke, Penn, Brown, UChicago, Northwestern, Dartmouth, Rice, Vanderbilt

For LACs, I don’t know that much, but I did look at a few. I found Oberlin, Colgate and Amherst to have programs to my liking, and I’ve heard Williams and Weslyan have good programs as well, but I don’t know.

calvinnnnn · July 1, 2007, 1:32am

all prestigious schools…what less competitive schools have good neuroscience programs?

world_changer · July 1, 2007, 10:54am

^I just ran an undergraduate search for you. Baylor, Tulane, Miami (FL), Pitt, and Washington State all have relatively strong programs, but are easier to get into.

I know that you’ve already been suggested plenty of reaches, but I also offer up Middlebury, and Emory (like I said before).

SHS_Spartan · July 1, 2007, 11:28am

I second Washington State

chronicidal · July 1, 2007, 12:35pm

I bet Princeton’s not on the NRC list because it doesn’t have many grad programs. The Princeton Institute for Neuroscience has been in planning for some time. A recent $30 mil gift will create the McDonnell Center for Systems Neuroscience. So P’ton should make a nice entry onto the neuro scene sometime in the near future.

nathanmc · July 2, 2007, 9:44am

Hidden Gem = Ohio Wesleyan

Trust me.

calvinnnnn · July 2, 2007, 6:55pm

great stuff guys, thanks!

posterX · August 2, 2007, 1:36pm

The rankings above are incorrect. There are actually a lot of ties.

<hr>

Neuroscience Rankings of best departments below.

Yale, Johns Hopkins, and UCSF (which doesn’t have undergrad) are the only schools that show up among the top 10 in all three measures.

<hr>

2005 Academic Analytics / Chronicle of Higher Education

1 Yale U. 1.90 80
2 Vanderbilt U. 1.89 58
3 Johns Hopkins U. 1.78 26
4 Mayo Graduate School 1.71 37
5 U. of California at San Francisco 1.68 65
5 Duke U. 1.68 25
7 Brandeis U. 1.67 20
8 U. of California at Berkeley 1.58 39
9 U. of Pittsburgh 1.54 69
10 U. of Pennsylvania 1.51 92

<hr>

2002 Sciencewatch/ISI (based on quality of 1997-2001 research)

1 Caltech 319 +124
2 Rockefeller University 537 +111
3 MIT 429 +107
4 Univ. Calif., San Francisco 1,424 +106
5 Washington University 1,258 +105
6 Harvard University 2,997 +95
7 Yale University 1,738 +76
8 Oregon Health Sci. Univ. 729 +72
9 Univ. Illinois, Urbana 315 +71
10 Johns Hopkins University 1,897 +71

<hr>

1995 National Research Council / Faculty Quality

<ol>
<li>University of California-San Diego 8.6 4.8 </li>
<li>Yale University 8.6 4.8 </li>
<li>Harvard University 8.1 4.7 </li>
<li>University of California-San Francisco 8.1 4.7 </li>
<li>Columbia University in the City of New York 7.6 4.6 </li>
<li>Stanford University 7.6 4.6 </li>
<li>Johns Hopkins University 7.2 4.5 </li>
<li>Washington University in St Louis 6.7 4.4 </li>
<li>California Institute of Technology 6.2 4.3 </li>
<li>University of California-Berkeley 6.2 4.3 </li>
<li>University of Pennsylvania 6.2 4.3 </li>
<li>University of Washington-Seattle Campus 6.2 4.3 </li>
<li>Massachusetts Institute of Technology 5.8 4.2 </li>
<li>Rockefeller University 5.8 4.2 </li>
<li>University of California-Los Angeles 4.4 3.9 </li>
<li>Baylor College of Medicine 3.9 3.8 </li>
<li>Brandeis University 3.9 3.8 </li>
<li>Case Western Reserve University 3.9 3.8 </li>
<li>Duke University 3.9 3.8 </li>
<li>University of Michigan-Ann Arbor 3.9 3.8 </li>
<li>University of California-Irvine (Psychobiology, School of Arts and Sciences) 3.5 3.7 </li>
<li>Cornell University 3.0 3.6 </li>
<li>Northwestern University 3.0 3.6 </li>
<li>University of Chicago 3.0 3.6 </li>
<li>University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill 3.0 3.6 </li>
<li>University of Wisconsin-Madison 3.0 3.6 </li>
<li>Yeshiva University 3.0 3.6 </li>
<li>Emory University 2.5 3.5 </li>
<li>Stony Brook University 2.5 3.5 </li>
<li>University of Iowa 2.5 3.5 </li>
<li>University of Oregon 2.5 3.5 </li>
<li>University of Virginia-Main Campus 2.5 3.5 </li>
<li>Vanderbilt University 2.5 3.5 </li>
<li>Mayo School of Health Related Sciences 2.1 3.4 </li>
<li>University of California-Irvine (Anatomy and Neurobiology, School of Medicine) 2.1 3.4 </li>
<li>University of Colorado at Boulder 2.1 3.4 </li>
<li>University of Minnesota-Twin Cities 2.1 3.4 </li>
<li>University of Pittsburgh-Main Campus (Behavioral Neuroscience, School of Arts and Sciences) 2.1 3.4 </li>
<li>University of Southern California 2.1 3.4 </li>
<li>University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center at Dallas 2.1 3.4 </li>
<li>Colorado State University 1.6 3.3 </li>
<li>The University of Texas Medical Branch 1.6 3.3 </li>
<li>University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign 1.6 3.3 </li>
<li>University of Pittsburgh-Main Campus (Neurobiology/Anatomy/Cell Biology, School of Medicine) 1.6 3.3 </li>
<li>University of Rochester 1.6 3.3 </li>
<li>Rutgers University-New Brunswick/Piscataway 1.1 3.2 </li>
<li>University of Arizona 1.1 3.2 </li>
<li>Georgetown University 0.7 3.1 </li>
<li>The University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston 0.7 3.1 </li>
<li>The University of Texas at Austin 0.7 3.1 </li>
<li>University of Connecticut (Neuroscience, School of Arts and Sciences) 0.7 3.1 </li>
<li>Brown University 0.2 3.0 </li>
<li>Drexel University 0.2 3.0 </li>
</ol>

etc

xiggi · August 2, 2007, 2:40pm

On a purely anecdotal basis, a recent HS graduate just turned down acceptances at Stanford, MIT, and several similar schools to enroll at the University of Texas at Austin. While the cost of education might have played a role, he mentioned a newly created or expanded Neuroscience program in Austin.

I did find something along those lines:

<a href=“http://cns.utexas.edu/communications/2006/09/clm_expansion.asp[/url]”>http://cns.utexas.edu/communications/2006/09/clm_expansion.asp</a>

University of Texas at Austin learning and memory research program grows
Tuesday, September 26, 2006

AUSTIN, Texas—The University of Texas at Austin’s Center for Learning and Memory has recruited and hired six top scientists intent upon understanding how the brain processes information, learns and remembers events in our everyday lives.

“There is a need for neuroscience and a demand for a strong neuroscience program at UT,” said Professor of Neurobiology Dan Johnston, who became director of the Center for Learning and Memory (CLM) and the Institute for Neuroscience in 2004.

Johnston said the university has primed itself to become a top-five neuroscience program in the nation within the next five years. CLM’s newest faculty members:

Dr. Richard Aldrich, formerly of Stanford University, studies the molecular mechanisms of ion channel function. Aldrich is the new chair of the Section of Neurobiology. 

Dr. Kristen Harris, formerly of Harvard Medical School and Boston University, studies the role of changes in synapse structure and composition in learning and memory. Harris is a professor of neurobiology and retains an adjunct professorship at the Medical College of Georgia. 

Dr. Helmut Koester, formerly of the Baylor College of Medicine, studies network activity of neurons using optical imaging and high-speed lasers. Koester is an assistant professor of neurobiology. 

Dr. Guosong Liu, formerly of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, studies mechanisms regulating plasticity in hippocampal synapses. Liu is an adjunct professor of neurobiology and maintains residence in California. 

Dr. Michael Mauk, of the University of Texas Medical School in Houston, studies motor learning in the cerebellum. He is interested in computer simulation of the cerebellum and is working towards building an artificial cerebellum. Mauk will join CLM in 2007. 

Dr. Alison Preston, of Stanford University, studies memory in the medial temporal lobe using functional magnetic resonance imaging on humans. Preston will join CLM in 2007. 

The Center for Learning and Memory (CLM) was created at The University of Texas by the Provost in 2004 with the vision of establishing a premier and internationally recognized research center that would utilize the collective abilities of accomplished scientists in the fields of molecular biology, biochemistry, genetics, physiology, psychology, pharmacology, engineering, physics, and computer science to elucidate some of the important mysteries into the mechanisms that govern the processes of learning and memory

I’d pay closer attention to recent announcements than to reports that could be a couple of decades old.

xiggi · August 2, 2007, 3:01pm

Fwiw, the biannual Associate of Neuroscience Departments and Programs (ANDP) or The Journal of Undergraduate Neuroscience Education (JUNE) might offer recent resources.

Here’s a page with links dating from 2004

<a href=“http://www.funfaculty.org/ugradprograms.html[/url]”>http://www.funfaculty.org/ugradprograms.html</a>

WealthOfInformation · August 2, 2007, 9:43pm

johns hopkins, penn, columbia

duh · August 3, 2007, 9:41am

basically most of universities with strong medical schools and/or biology depts have great neuroscience programs. examples include;

harvard, duke, jhu, washu, yale, stanford

posterX · August 3, 2007, 10:59am

The list above is inaccurate because it does not consider schools that have Neuroscience majors listed under different departments (e.g., biology, cog sci etc).

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