Our Goal is to enhance the principal research objectives of the Consortium research effort through the training of young neuroscientists from a diverse range of disciplines, and through the intrinsic cross-discipline bridging function of dual-mentorship training. Postdoctoral trainees supported by the Interdisciplinary Training Program will play a vital role in developing and integrating the various research components by conducting research that bridges individual institute laboratories and projects. By integrating cross-project collaborations within the training program, we will naturally facilitate interactions across projects and significantly enhance the progress of the institute. In addition, the long term success of this interdisciplinary approach to understanding and developing targeted treatments for neurodevelopmental and neurodegenerative disorders will critically depend upon the training of a new generation of interdisciplinary researchers who possess ideas and skills that go far beyond their initial disciplinary boundaries.

The research paradigm of the institute, namely, the application of a highly-interdisciplinary approach to the development of targeted therapeutics for the neurodegenerative disorder, fragile X-associated tremor/ataxia syndrome (FXTAS), provides an outstanding environment for training in interdisciplinary neuroscience; an environment that fully spans both basic and clinical domains. Trainees from diverse disciplines and backgrounds, including molecular biology, mouse biology and behavior, cognitive neuroscience and human functional neuroimaging; and clinical neuroscience disciplines (neurology, psychiatry, pediatrics and clinical psychology) will train together in the ITN. The ITN will emphasize both individualized research training across at least two institute laboratories (dual mentorship), and a set of core competencies that spans the entire range of the represented disciplines. The program will target trainees who can be positioned to bridge different laboratories in order to create a new kind of investigator, one who can go beyond traditional roles and lead future mechanistic studies and intervention efforts aimed towards understanding and treating neurogenetic developmental disorders from a truly interdisciplinary perspective.

Participation in this program thus represents an outstanding training opportunity for postdoctoral researchers in the allied neurosciences, who wish to extend their research interests to problems of direct clinical relevance.

More information about this program will be posted in the near future. Until then, please contact the institute with any questions at FXTAS@ucdavis.edu.