Addiction Neuroscience Ph.D. (Purdue degree)
Offered by: Department of Psychology In 1994, the Psychology Department at Indiana University Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI) established a new graduate PhD program in Psychobiology (which in 2013 became the Addiction Neuroscience program). The degree is from Purdue University for work done entirely in Indianapolis, Indiana, and is administered through the Psychology Department.Why choose this program?
Program Objectives
The program's objective is to train students interested in the behavioral and brain sciences who seek research-based careers in behavioral neuroscience and psychopharmacology. The graduate training is designed to promote a comprehensive understanding of the neural bases of behavior, with an emphasis on the behavioral neurobiology of drugs of abuse.
Students are expected to gain expertise in integrative neuroscience, and learn to apply current methods of cellular and systems neuroscience to key problems of drug abuse and addiction. The program is intended to prepare students for careers in traditional academic institutions, in medical neuroscience research environments, or in pharmaceutical industry or government research settings.
Four Different Graduate Programs
There are 4different graduate programs in neuroscience among the three major universities in central Indiana (IUPUI, IU and Purdue). Each program has unique strengths in providing graduate neuroscience research training. Learn more about the 4 programs below.
Mentor Model Training Process
The training process uses a mentor model in which the students work closely with individual faculty, often in collaboration with other faculty on campus. To achieve this, the number of active students is limited to about ten in a given year. Faculty expertise and program emphasis are in behavior, psychopharmacology and neurochemistry of alcohol and drugs of abuse, the genetic determinants of alcohol abuse, mechanisms of alcohol-related behavior (preference, tolerance, and dependence), and the behavioral and neurobiological consequences of developmental exposure to drugs of abuse. Emphasis is placed on use of animal models in drug abuse research, including models of drug-seeking behavior, animal models in preclinical testing of potential pharmacotherapies of alcoholism, and animal models of fetal alcohol and fetal psychostimulant exposure. Other areas of interest include behavioral and neural plasticity in response to brain damage, the experimental analysis and neural correlates of learned behavior, and the behavioral genetics of alcoholism.
What will you learn?
The graduate training focuses on the actions and effects of alcohol and drugs of abuse on brain function and brain development, as well as on brain mechanisms of addictive behavior. The expertise of the faculty includes behavioral neuroscience, psychopharmacology, neurochemistry, neuropharmacology and developmental psychobiology.
Program Emphasis
Faculty interest and program emphasis are in psychopharmacology and neurochemistry of alcohol and drugs of abuse, the behavioral genetics of alcohol abuse, behavioral and neurobiological consequences of developmental exposure to drugs of abuse, and use of animal models in drug abuse research.