Neuroscience's Missing Piece

When John Bickle, head of the philosophy department and three McMicken undergraduates traveled to Hungary to participate in a study abroad program he helped design, he wasn't thinking only of the one-week block course he was scheduled to teach. He was also hoping that a unique learning opportunity like Budapest Semester in Cognitive Science might eventually become an option in the interdisciplinary undergraduate neuroscience program he, Michael Lehman, director of the interdisciplinary neuroscience graduate program in the College of Medicine, and a group of their colleagues have proposed.

Even though the UC graduate program in neuroscience and its Neuroscience Center are nationally known, there is a missing piece in what Bickle describes as “one of the hottest areas in contemporary science.” That piece is an undergraduate major, and the irony is that much of the required coursework and lab training is already taught in several McMicken departments. The goal now is to establish the degree-granting program, which would prepare students for graduate scientific work or professional training in medicine, nursing, or applied health.

The proposed major would be organized around the basic neurosciences and would emphasize students' developing and implementing hypothesis-driven research skills. Teaching and research resources would come from the Colleges of Medicine, Pharmacy, Allied Health, and the Children's Hospital Research Foundation, as well as McMicken College.

According to Bickle, neuroscience is a “hot topic” because “the relationship between conscious, purposeful mind and physical body has been a perennial philosophical problem since humans were capable of drawing this conceptual distinction. And now we have both knowledge and tools to investigate this relationship scientifically.”

The study abroad program designed by Bickle and colleagues from Hungary's Eotvos University and the Hungarian Academy of Sciences is one of a kind because “it has scientific content tied to the cognitive and brain sciences. Other travel abroad opportunities tend to be in the humanities and cultural areas.” He sees it as a golden opportunity for future undergraduates in neuroscience: “They'll be able to continue their interdisciplinary educations by studying with world experts, plus having the opportunity to broaden their cultural knowledge about an increasingly important region in global politics, economics, and science.”