Neuroscience Training in Drug Abuse Research

This institutional training program at the University of Minnesota focuses on the preparation of neuroscience graduate students and postdoctoral fellows for research and study in the field of drug addiction. Research programs across the 26 participating investigators span cellular and molecular, systems, computational, and behavioral neuroscience-based approaches to studying addiction. The program aligns basic researchers, technology engineers, and translational scientists to provide an exceptional breadth of scientific scope and training capacity. The scientific environment is highly cooperative, with robust extramural research support that benefits from multiple active collaborations. Rigorous and effective training is supported through tailoring individual developmental plans, the addition of new courses in quantitative analyses and computational neuroscience methods, a highly comprehensive program for mentoring the mentors, thorough evaluation of training outcomes, and expanding outreach across the state of Minnesota. The commitment of the University of Minnesota to this training program is readily apparent; over 30 million dollars was recently invested in the hiring of faculty studying the neuroscience underlying drug addiction. This has resulted in the addition of numerous new exceptional mentoring faculty to the program. This proposal requests six predoctoral and three postdoctoral positions, the same number as previously supported. Robust institutional support will provide an additional three training slots, with the remaining matching funds providing resources for an annual retreat, on-going seminar series, and additional program expenditures. By providing training essential to the next generation of drug addiction researchers, this T32 program facilitates progress in the understanding of drug addiction.