Neuroscience Research

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Utilise exciting cutting-edge neuroscience techniques to advance our understanding of the nervous system and brain at University of Leeds

Our nervous system is the most complex and highly organised system within our body. This incredible network is responsible for generating our perception, thoughts, and even our behaviour. Your research will seek to understand how this structure operates, before using this understanding to tackle real-world challenges such as ageing, stroke recovery and spinal cord injury repair.

This unique, one-year Master of Research degree includes an almost year-long laboratory based research experience. You will have the opportunity to develop and learn innovative techniques as you apply them in a hands-on setting. This provides you with invaluable experience for your future in research or academia.

With this course you may choose from a wealth of different research areas, allowing you to contribute to research teams and topics you are personally passionate about. Each of the four subject areas listed below contains a multitude of speciality teams.

Research areas include:

  • Molecules and Cells
  • Disease, Disorder, Injury & Repair
  • Circuits, Systems and Computations
  • Psychology, Behaviour and Cognitive Neuroscience

Here are just a few examples of past research topic chosen by students:

  • Role of muscles and central drive in the dynamic and static phases of a task
  • Virtual Reality Therapy and Cervical Spinal Cord Injury
  • Predictors of habit strength in health behaviours
  • Optical measurements of neural plasticity in mouse models of brain disorders

Find out more about our Neuroscience research.


Course content

The programme has two components. First are taught courses, with hands-on training in:

  • advanced tools and techniques useful in interrogating the nervous system for preclinical and clinical purposes;
  • scientific writing, presentation skills along with critical reading and comprehension of research articles.

This ensures you have all the skills needed for the major component, the laboratory-based project. In addition, to make it easier for you to make the transition, an overview of the field of neuroscience (online resources, and lectures) as taught to our undergraduate students are made available for your perusal.

The second component – the laboratory-based project, is the dominating portion of this programme. Project titles and briefs are made available to you prior to you starting in the laboratories, these change every year as it is dependent on the direction of research of the groups. These will be made available to students to select and decide upon as soon as you have registered and confirmed your enrolment. Students will make the decisions during the first month of the programme after meeting with the group leader/s. This will be arranged by the module or programme lead.

The modules introduce you to contemporary data analysis tools, fundamentals of bioimaging and the use of data from real experimental scenarios. The use of core statistical models (classification, regressions), for analysis of different time-series datasets provided by local researchers, will be introduced during the data analytics module. You will also analyse and interpret large scale biological and biomedical data to help with the diagnostics and therapeutics of physiological function.

Depending on the project chosen, at the end of the course, we expect you to have acquired the skills to:

  • Design and conduct experiments to elucidate the working of the neuronal systems.
  • Develop an understanding of normal neurological function in vertebrates to enable a better understanding of dysfunction.
  • Use technologies to interrogate neurological dysfunctions in the vertebrate population (animal and human diseases).
  • Analyse the data using appropriate methods and statistical techniques, and interpret, critically discuss, and draw conclusions from these data.
  • Establish efficacious use of new tools and their outcome evaluation to enable easy transfer of knowledge to preclinical and clinical scientists.
  • Provide insight into how this information can then be transferred towards drug discovery, diagnostics, biomarker screening for patient stratification, improved rehabilitation, and technological adaptations.
  • Introduce the use of big data analysis, use of mathematical algorithms and software pertinent to the study of the nervous system and development of new tools involving the capture of biological data, processing, and its use for producing a defined output.

Few of the project topic choices in the past have been:

Neuro-engineering

  • Role of muscles and central drive in the dynamic and static phases of a task
  • AI tools to improve detection of kinematics using a single camera and identification of subjects
  • Building fabric-based actuators replicating graded recruitment of biological muscles

Exercise and rehabilitation

  • The Effect of Motor Imagery and Transcutaneous Electrical Stimulation on Cortical and Spinal Excitability
  • Plasticity inhibiting factors in exercise training
  • Virtual Reality Therapy and Cervical Spinal Cord Injury

Cognitive neuroscience

  • Modelling the effect of sensory modality and trial-by-trial accuracy on active perceptual decisions
  • Tensor decompositions for single-trial analysis of EEG data
  • Predictors of habit strength in health behaviours

Neurobiology

  • Mitochondria fission in the astrocytes of the DVC alters brown fat physiology
  • Viral infection of cell lines as a screen for effective viral use in vivo
  • Effect of CSPG digestion on cell proliferation and differentiation in the adult rat spinal cord
  • Optical measurements of neural plasticity in mouse models of brain disorders
  • Expansion microscopy of perineuronal nets in the central nervous system

Course structure

The list shown below represents typical modules/components studied and may change from time to time. Read more in our Terms and conditions.

For more information and a full list of typical modules available on this course, please read Neuroscience MRes in the course catalogue

 


 

Course Website  
( https://courses.leeds.ac.uk/i920/neuroscience-mres )

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