Cornell University

The concentration in Neurobiology and Behavior covers a broad range of topics, all concerned in some way with how animals (including humans) behave and what neural mechanisms underlie their behavior. Students are required to take the two introductory courses, one in behavior (fall) and one in neuroscience (spring), in any order. After taking these courses, each student has a choice of many different upper-level courses for further exploration of areas of special interest, including social evolution, behavioral neurobiology, animal communication, animal cognition, computational and systems neuroscience, neuropharmacology, chemical ecology, motor systems, brain evolution, motivation, and cell and molecular neuroscience.

Neurobiology and behavior is a synthesis of many disciplines, including physiology, anatomy, ecology, evolution, genetics, biochemistry, physics and mathematics. The course requirements beyond the required two-course introductory sequence are left unspecified, so that courses may be selected from a wide range of possibilities, depending on your interests. These include one upper-level neurobiology and behavior course, 3000 level or above of at least 3 credits plus one or two other BIONB courses from the wide variety of course offerings. Credit for classes outside of the BIONB offerings is permitted but, it is at the discretion of the faculty advisor and it should reflect coursework that is cross-disciplinary with the concentration. Students are encouraged to get hands-on experience in a research lab or the field, and/or take one of the advanced laboratory courses or topic seminars during their senior year. Faculty advisers help students plan their courses of study in light of their interests and goals.

The variety of courses offered in this concentration reflects the breadth of research interests of its faculty. These interests span field and laboratory studies. They include such diverse topics as animal communication, plant behavior, sensory systems, systems and computational neuroscience, behavioral genetics, cellular neurophysiology, and neuropharmacology (“drugs and the brain”).