About the Neuroscience Department

The UK College of Medicine Department of Neuroscience is a highly collaborative, multidisciplinary, and translational environment that provides research and training opportunities in neuroscience, ranging from molecular and cellular neurobiology to neuroimaging, from understanding basic neuroscience to investigating mechanisms and treatments of central nervous system disorders due to aging, injury, and disease.

Our world-class team of scientists, with nearly thirteen million dollars a year in grants and contracts, conducts biomedical research in Alzheimer's disease, addiction, epilepsy, Huntington’s disease, metabolism, Parkinson's disease, stroke, and spinal cord and brain injury and repair. We are truly an integrative department on campus, with many of our faculty collaborating with different basic science and clinical departments in the College of Medicine, different departments and colleges within the University of Kentucky, and translational research centers, including: the Brain Restoration Center, the Center for Advanced Translational Stroke Science (CATSS), the Center for Microelectrode Technology (CenMeT), the Good Laboratory Practices (GLP) Center, the Magnetic Resonance Imaging and Spectroscopy Center (MRISC), the Sanders Brown Center on Aging (SBCoA), and the Spinal Cord and Brain Injury Research Center (SCoBIRC). For additional information on the faculty and their research interests go to our faculty research page.

Our department is equally committed to recruiting, educating, and training the next generation of neuroscientists and health professionals. Beginning with pre-college students, programs, such as our START Program, engaging underrepresented learners in neuroscience and higher education through outreach and providing authentic learning experiences on campus. Our mission extends to undergraduate education, providing instruction of anatomy for numerous pre-professional majors and programs, undergraduate research opportunities in neuroscience, and through a cross-college partnership with the College of Arts and Sciences, our department co-administers (with the departments of biology and psychology) the popular neuroscience undergraduate major. The Master of Science and Medical Sciences program allows students to gain additional courses and training in biomedical research.

The pathway continues to our neuroscience PhD graduate program, where students receive graduate neuroscience coursework and personalized training in independent research, in a highly collaborative environment with our faculty. Our graduate program has a strong record of training biomedical researchers, healthcare professionals, and faculty. In addition, graduate students can receive additional training in instruction through our graduate teaching certificate program in anatomical sciences and/or neuroscience. Finally, our department provides instruction for numerous health professional programs, including the College of Medicine MD program. For additional information on our educational mission, go to our education page.

We are proud of our advances, discoveries, and students! We invite you to explore our website and the pages of our individual faculty and programs. To keep updated on news and updates from our department, feel free to follow our social media channels linked below. We want to hear from you! Please feel free to email us for more information about our department and programs.

Best regards,

Luke H. Bradley, PhD
Chellgren Endowed Professor and Acting Chair