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Neuroscience

Available as a concentration

Neuroscience offers you an opportunity to learn about theory and research the brain and nervous system from a number of perspectives.

You'll come to understand how developments in biology, psychology, chemistry and related fields alter knowledge and research techniques in the other fields.

Curriculum & Courses

Sample Course Offerings

NEUR 330: Principles of Neuroscience
HHP 306: Motor Behavior 
BIOL 420: Developmental Biology
PSYC 335: Neuropsychology
PHYS 410: Biophysics

A student demonstrating a neurological monitor on another student

Student Experiences

Nikki Hurless speaking at graduation

Nikki Hurless, a psychology major who concentrated on neuroscience, was accepted directly into a Ph.D. program at St Louis University. As a sophomore at Roanoke, Hurless worked with Professors Edward Whitson and David Nichols using both physiological measures (i.e. heart rate, galvanic skin response, electroencephalography) combined with survey responses on emotional reactivity for an Honors project. She also held an internship at the Salem Veterans Affairs Medical Center, where she helped conduct research. As an undergraduate, Hurless published an article on her research in a noted neuroscience professional journal, a first for a Roanoke College student in this field.

Shields heads back to Germany with Fulbright

Stephanie Shields smiles for a photo

Stephanie Shields has been selected for a Fulbright U.S. Student Award to Germany. She will be doing research at Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München in Munich, Germany. Shields will contribute to work on vocal learning - the capacity to learn to produce new sounds through imitation - in the bat Phyllostomus discolor. Shields is a psychology major with a neuroscience concentration and a German minor. After her Fulbright work, Shields plans to earn a Ph.D. in neuroscience. Shields has been conducting research at Roanoke with Dr. David Nichols for several years, and her work resulted in one first-author publication and another first-author manuscript submitted for publication. One of her projects relates to facial attractiveness and emotionality in which she used EEG to investigate the timing of neural responses to faces.

What Makes Roanoke Different?

Roanoke College is a Top Producer of Fulbright U.S. Students

Roanoke is one of the nation's top producers of Fulbright U.S. students. Roanoke-which has produced at least one Fulbright student in each of the past five years, with a record six students for the 2017-18 academic year. Roanoke is the only Virginia college included on the Fulbright students list for bachelor's degree institutions.

Pictures of Fulbright logo and headshots of Roanoke College

Ranked as one of 35 "great schools for psychology" by The Princeton Review, Roanoke College's psychology department focuses on this subject as a science.

Learn by Doing

Psyched to do research

Students conducting an experiment
Students hooking each other up to equipment for an experiment
Group of psych majors posing for a photo
Students conducting an experiment
Students conducting an experiment
Students working at computers for an experiment
Student consulting notes during an experiment
Computer showing the results of a test
Students working on an experiment

Careers & Outcomes

Roanoke teams present neuroscience-based research

A student standing in front of her research poster at a presentation

Alex Grant, Nathaniel De Young and Dr. Brian Shenal presented "A comparison between QOL in TBI and Memory Disorder Clinics." at the SYNAPSE Conference at UNC Asheville, and Stephanie Shields, Caitlin Morse, and Dr. David Nichols presented "Are electrode caps worth the investment? An evaluation of EEG methods in undergraduate neuroscience lab courses and research." at the Society for Neuroscience meeting in San Diego.

Faculty

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News

Interested in studying neuroscience at Roanoke College?

Request Information

Neuroscience offers you an opportunity to learn about theory and research the brain and nervous system from a number of perspectives.

You'll come to understand how developments in biology, psychology, chemistry and related fields alter knowledge and research techniques in the other fields. While the psychology department houses the concentration, it's designed to be compatible with majors in biology, chemistry, health and human performance, and physics, since neuroscience is an interdisciplinary field.

You'll be encouraged to work with a professor to conduct research and publish your findings—a key advantage if you intend to go on to graduate programs in neuroscience.