Training Program in Social Neuroscience Research - SUMMARY Mount Sinai's Training Program in Social Neuroscience Research will offer late-stage predoctoral (PhD) students and early-stage postdoctoral fellows an integrated program of training in social behavior research that builds on vast expertise in translational neuroscience, neurology, psychiatry, and genomic sciences. The overarching goal of the program is to provide rigorous, broad-based, individualized, and multidisciplinary training with enhanced opportunities for mentoring, collaboration, and career development designed to prepare the next generation of independent investigators in social behavior research, particularly as it relates to neuropsychiatric syndromes. At the heart of this new Training Program will be a superb training faculty representing remarkable diversity in basic and clinically-relevant topics, including social behavior disturbances in psychiatric and neurological diseases; molecular and synaptic mechanisms of social behavior; and developmental disorders of social function. The training program comprises seven inter-related components: academic coursework, laboratory training, non-curricular training activities (seminars, retreats, etc.), testing/evaluation, teaching opportunities, mentoring, and career development activities. Varied laboratory opportunities at Mount Sinai take advantage of strengths in translational neuroscience, computational neuroscience, neuropsychiatric genomics, neuroimaging, epigenetics, and synaptic and behavioral plasticity and provide opportunities for the study of diverse model systems. The Training Program includes more than a dozen opportunities either newly created or building on existing opportunities to create sharp focus on training in social neuroscience relevant to neuropsychiatric disease, to emphasize multidisciplinary collaborations, and to foster and promote exceptional rigor and creativity. Pre-and-postdoctoral trainees will participate in a range of required and optional training activities to ensure strong grounding in basic neuroscience and opportunities to learn from and with peers and faculty from across the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai (the Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences, the medical school, interdisciplinary Centers and Institutes, central among them the Friedman Brain Institute), as well as from other institutions. Creating a structure for, and culture of, mentoring across the continuum of the Training Program is a key component of the program; formal and informal advising and mentoring will be integrated into training across roles and levels, including mentoring opportunities for training faculty and sponsors (preceptors). Integrating predoctoral and postdoctoral training through formal mechanisms will provide greater continuity in the overall training experience, enhanced opportunities for collaboration among trainees interested in pursuing careers in mental health research, and will benefit the neuroscience research effort at Mount Sinai. The Training Program in Social Neuroscience will prepare the most promising trainees for productive, independent careers in social neuroscience research through a training program that both promotes rigor and nurtures innovation.
