The summer Neuroscience REU program seeks students from a diversity of backgrounds including but not limited to: biology, zoology, psychology, mathematics, computer science, computer engineering, electrical engineering, physics, mechanical engineering, and chemistry. Some projects will be individual, others will be interdisciplinary team projects. Summer project opportunities span the full range of the subdisciplines of biological, computational, and cognitive neuroscience.

Anticipated projects for the ’09 Session include the following. Student participants may indicate their preferences for assignment. Final assignments will be based on the participating faculty’s assessment of the best match between student interests, academic backgrounds, and available positions.

• Neurogenesis and cell survival over the zebrafish lifespan
• Synthesis of hydrophobic nucleic acids for neuroscience applications
• Use of Evolutionary Computing Algorithms to develop computational neuron models for neocortical neural networks
• Lumped element modeling of glial cell calcium signaling in cortical neural networks
• Small cortical neural netlets for frequency selective neural circuits
• Functional genomics of behavioral variation in the zebrafish
• Exploration of unsupervised learning applied to pulse-coupled neural networks
• Implementation of adaptive pulse-coupled neural networks in field-programmable gate arrays
• Vasopressin modulation of olfactory system responses to social odor
• Neural Network Modeling of Affectivity-Driven Learning
• Virtual environments and computational models to examine how the brain implements visual control of locomotion.
• Use of evolutionary algorithms to train cooperative neural networks

REU applications are available in PDF form.