Contemporary Topics in Neuroscience

This seminar course examines emerging and debated topics in contemporary neuroscience, with an emphasis on mechanisms relevant to learning and memory and neuropsychiatric disorders. Students will read and critique primary research articles and reviews spanning neural ensembles and memory, fear learning and generalization, stress and trauma, sex differences, circuit tools for causal inference and connectivity, neuroimmune mechanisms, aging-related cognitive decline, single-cell and spatial genomics, brain–body interactions, and emerging therapeutics. The course also introduces AI-enabled approaches for analyzing and interpreting neuroscience data. The course emphasizes experimental logic, figure interpretation, scientific communication, and responsible translation from animal models to human conditions.