Does anyone here have any experience going the MSTP route if one is interested in the above types of research? I think this is the type of research I would like to do, but I get the sense that MSTP is really on meant for bench research, so I don't know how succesful I would be if I applied MSTP with the above type of research interest/research experience. I do have neuroscience-based bench research experience, but I think I am more interested in doing neuroimaging or research that probes human learning/memory on a more macroscopic level, rather than just the molecules and/or receptors themselves.
Neuroimaging and/or Cognitive Psychology MSTP
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I think that neuroimaging is a very reasonable track. Its very cutting edge at the moment, and it would be easy to argue that being a neuroscience PhD + a radiology MD = neuroimaging MD/PhD (although due to the recent comments about radiology on this forum, maybe its not the best way to go...). But the cog psych is less common from what I understand, and is not something you need an MD PhD for. You could just become a psychiatrist and do the research. I know that Baylor has some very interesting fMRI research going on, as does many other places I'm sure.
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Everyone has fMRI research going on. You don't need top of the line equipment that costs big bucks and you don't need a good understanding of MR physics to do it. So it's in vogue right now. Neurologists and Psychiatrists who have few other ways to study the brain can create a paradigm, press a button on the MR scanner, and input the results into SPM for VOILA! Results. Send to Human Brain Mapping (IF 7), rinse, repeat. Reproducibility may be just about zero, but eh, nobody can reproduce your paradigm *exactly* can they?
I did my PhD in Biophysics and I'm a more nuts and bolts MR engineering type. So the above paragraph just reflects the bias you'll hear from us. But that's ok. I do think if you have experience in this field as an undergrad you can easily make arguments for a neuroimaging PhD at many programs. My advice is to look at it more from an engineering perspective so you really understand the fundamentals of MR if you're going to do BOLD/ASL/VASO/etc... You can still get your PhD in Neuroscience or Biophysics (and I recommend this if you weren't an engineering undergrad), but make sure to take the hardcore MR courses. Baylor isn't the first place that comes to my mind as being strong in these things. It's more like Minnesota (BOLD fMRI birthplace), MGH, Penn (ASL birthplace, though the real brains behind it are at MGH), and I can give more recommendations if needed...
I did my PhD in Biophysics and I'm a more nuts and bolts MR engineering type. So the above paragraph just reflects the bias you'll hear from us. But that's ok. I do think if you have experience in this field as an undergrad you can easily make arguments for a neuroimaging PhD at many programs. My advice is to look at it more from an engineering perspective so you really understand the fundamentals of MR if you're going to do BOLD/ASL/VASO/etc... You can still get your PhD in Neuroscience or Biophysics (and I recommend this if you weren't an engineering undergrad), but make sure to take the hardcore MR courses. Baylor isn't the first place that comes to my mind as being strong in these things. It's more like Minnesota (BOLD fMRI birthplace), MGH, Penn (ASL birthplace, though the real brains behind it are at MGH), and I can give more recommendations if needed...
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Human Brain Mapping (IF 7)
Good lord.
Good lord.
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6.15, my bad. But yeah, the fMRI based journals do very well on impact factor and the fMRI papers routinely make the top journals like Nature Neuroscience. It's like a positive feedback loop that just doesn't exist in the hardcore MRI journals that are much more antagonistic and territorial.
Found this paper on the topic funny though:
http://www.nature.com/neuro/journal/v12/n5/abs/nn.2303.html
Thanks for all the responses! In my title I also meant to add Cognitive Neuroscience as an area of interest for MSTP. In an case, does anyone know the best schools/ schools that are receptive to an MSTP student that would be interested in Neuroimaging/Cognitive Psychology/Cognitive Neuroscience research? (Hey Neuronix I saw your list of schools thx. Feel free to give more recommendations). The path that I want to take seems to be non-traditional for an MSTP student, but it's encouraging to hear that one could possibly pursue such a path.
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I did my PhD in the area of cognitive neuroscience and am now a resident in psychiatry, with a plan to apply cognitive neuroscience methods (e.g. fMRI, experimental psychology) to the study of psychiatric illnesses.
This is an extremely hot area of research in bio-medicine right now. You are right that historically there has been a bias towards a cellular/molecular focus among MSTPs. This is changing rapidly, however, with the dissemination of fMRI as a common research tool, and with the growing understanding that psychiatric illnesses are all disorders of cognition, even if they are initially "caused" by some neurochemical problem (we can save the discussion of what the term "cause" means for another thread on philosophy of mind and epistemology).
There are an increasing number of MD-PhDs graduating with degrees in cognitive neuroscience. The majority of them are specializing in psychiatry (as opposed to radiology or neurology).
Go for it! The NIMH (and NIDA, and NIAAA, and, to a lesser extent, NINDS) will love you.
This is an extremely hot area of research in bio-medicine right now. You are right that historically there has been a bias towards a cellular/molecular focus among MSTPs. This is changing rapidly, however, with the dissemination of fMRI as a common research tool, and with the growing understanding that psychiatric illnesses are all disorders of cognition, even if they are initially "caused" by some neurochemical problem (we can save the discussion of what the term "cause" means for another thread on philosophy of mind and epistemology).
There are an increasing number of MD-PhDs graduating with degrees in cognitive neuroscience. The majority of them are specializing in psychiatry (as opposed to radiology or neurology).
Go for it! The NIMH (and NIDA, and NIAAA, and, to a lesser extent, NINDS) will love you.
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I can only speak for where I know there are some good labs in fMRI, but I can't speak for how good the training is or how receptive the MSTP is to that kind of research. PM me when you're setting your list of schools and I'll send more recommendations.
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Human neuroimaging has been and will continue to be a very hot research area. Exercise caution however--there are some programs that are not as receptive to students doing their PhD work in neuroimaging because of bias toward cell/molecular neuroscience. Be sure to ask individual MSTP programs and their respective graduate programs what they allow.
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HAHAHA. I love this thread. I'm doing neuroimaging myself so it's funny to see peoples' satire of this field, as well as useful advice!
What I heard regarding MSTP bias against neuroimaging (straight from a MSTP director at my school) is that often neuroimaging applicants haven't done hypothesis testing - they just run a bunch of data and stuff but don't actually go through the process and test thoses hypotheses. So if you're an undergrad doing neuroimaging research, you should show that you've done that, and it's golden.
What I heard regarding MSTP bias against neuroimaging (straight from a MSTP director at my school) is that often neuroimaging applicants haven't done hypothesis testing - they just run a bunch of data and stuff but don't actually go through the process and test thoses hypotheses. So if you're an undergrad doing neuroimaging research, you should show that you've done that, and it's golden.
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That's the typical bias against engineering fields. Having worked in several types of engineering (without ever actually being an engineer) and in cell biology I can say... I think it's nonsense. I think MR guys plan their experiments just as much as cell/mol biologists. When the cell biologist gets some funny result, they try to spin it to fit some new hypothesis or massage the data to fit something publishable just as much as we do.
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I think he may be referring specifically to undergrads who do imaging work (they, after all, are the MSTP applicants). Obviously the MR studies have to be planned out and all that, but because they're human subjects (and expensive!), it's unlikely that the undergrad actually helped develop the protocol and hypothesis, and more likely that the undergrad was given a bunch of data, SPM, and told to do some analysis (read: important but not necessarily scientific gruntwork).
Whereas it's more likely in a cell/molecular lab that you can be given some stuff and come up with your own little hypotheses, experiments, etc.
can you give more suggestions? somewhere outside of boston or california is preferable (im from los angeles, did my undergrad at boston university, and am currently working in san francisco at ucsf/san francisco general hospital... i like to try new places).
i want the more hardcore MR approach and definitely dont want to be limited by only doing fmri...other forms of mr imaging are really cool, too!
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Go here:
http://www.acadrad.org/showpage.aspx?page=nih_radiology_grants_fy2008
For strong research Radiology departments I'd make my arbitrary cutoff about 20th on that list. That list isn't the greatest though because some schools are much more clinically funded (Sloan Kettering, though they do have some basic work) while others are much more basic science driven (Minnesota). Some on that list are known more for other modalities than MRI as well.
Some of the basic science work may not be classified under Radiology at all (Bioengineering, Biophysics), so they don't show up there. Notable places not on that list and not in Cali or Boston that come to mind for basic MR physics are: OHSU, UIC-Chicago, and FSU, though I'm sure there's some that are slipping my mind. Any place that currently has a 7T or higher Human scanner for example is a good place to learn evolving human MR imaging, instrumentation, and physics.
This list does not vouch for a strong MSTP or a MSTP that is friendly to this kind of research work. On that, I really have little clue.
