Neuroscience

Basic Techniques in neuroscience: 

• Recording from the brain:
• Single-unit recordings: EEG (including frequency bands), normal findings, and evoked response techniques. Applications to the investigation of cerebral pathology, seizure disorders, sleep, and psychiatric disorders, and effects of drugs on the EEG.
• Neuroimaging and its role in understanding brain function (including structural MRI, DTI, fMRI, PET, MR spectroscopy)
• Micro dialysis
• Perturbing brain function (including lesion studies, electrical stimulation, optogenetics, TMS, tDCS, deep brain stimulation, vagus nerve stimulation)
• Animal models of psychiatric disease
• Computational modeling and models, and data-analytic descriptions

Cells

The cells found within the nervous system and their anatomical and functional localization in layers in distinct parts of the cortex. Fundamental concepts in the physiology of neurons, synapses, and receptors, including an understanding of resting potential, action potential, ion fluxes, and channels, G-protein-coupled receptors, allosteric modulation of receptors, synaptic plasticity, and pruning, etc. Modeling single neurons and their combination in circuits.

Neurotransmitters and receptors

• Transmitter synthesis, storage, release, and uptake. Ion channels and calcium flux in relation to synaptic physiology.
• Knowledge of receptor structure and function in relation to the transmitters listed below. Pre-synaptic and post-synaptic receptors.
• Knowledge of the principle second messenger systems related to the transmitters listed below and those related to basic neuronal homeostasis and plasticity.
• Basic pharmacology of noradrenaline, serotonin, dopamine, GABA, acetylcholine, excitatory amino acids.
• Knowledge of neuropeptides, particularly corticotrophin-releasing hormone, cholecystokinin, ghrelin, leptin, GLP-1, encephalins/endorphins, endo-cannabinoid system, orexin.
• Links between neurotransmitter systems and findings from genetic association studies in psychiatry.
• Effects of opioids and common recreational drugs on neurotransmission, and link to mental health symptoms

Neuroanatomy:

•  The general anatomy of the brain and the functions of the lobes and some major gyri including the prefrontal cortex, cingulate gyrus, and limbic system. Working knowledge of cranial nerve and spinal cord structure.
• The anatomy of the basal ganglia, i.e. caudate, putamen, the globus pallidus, ventral pallidum, substantia nigra, and subthalamic nucleus.
• The internal anatomy of the temporal lobes, hippocampal formation and amygdala, neurogenesis, and its role in mental health, temporal lobe epilepsy.
• The internal anatomy of the frontal lobes and cingulate gyrus.
• The major white matter pathways, e.g., corpus callosum, fornix, Papez’s circuit, and other pathways relevant to integrated behavior.
• The anatomical course of major neurochemical pathways, including the nigrostriatal, mesolimbic, and mesocortical dopamine pathways, the ascending noradrenergic pathway from the locus coeruleus, the basal forebrain cholinergic pathway, the brain stems cholinergic pathway, the corticofugal glutamate system, and serotonin pathways.

Neural circuits: 

• The neural circuits involved in the following, and how these functions are disturbed in psychiatric disorders:
• Appetite, hunger, and thirst, including disturbance in eating disorders and mood disorders, medication side-effects
• Sleep, arousal, effects of sleep deprivation, primary sleep disorders, the role of sleep in other psychiatric disorders
• Sex, including effects of hormonal treatments, gender identity, disturbances related to psychiatric disorder, and psychotropic induced disturbance. 
• Aggression
• Pain and chronic pain
• Motor control, including the neurobiology of extrapyramidal side effects
• Learning, including computational models both in normal learning and in pathology (associative learning by Hebbian adaptation; unsupervised vs. supervised, reinforcement)
• Habit formation, including the neurobiology of obsessions and compulsions
• Motivation, reward, and pleasure, including relevance to mood disorders, psychosis, and emotional instability
• Emotion and its regulation, including relevance to mood disorders, psychosis, and emotional instability
• Perception
• Attention, impairment in ADHD
• Memory, including in dementia and PTSD
• Executive function, hypofrontality, impulsivity
• Empathy, the theory of mind, including in autism and dissocial behavior
• Default mode and salience networks.

Modulators (hormones, inflammatory responses)

• An understanding of the neuroendocrine system, in particular the control of the secretion of hypothalamic and pituitary hormones (by releasing factors and by feedback control) and posterior pituitary function.
• The stress response, effects of glucocorticoids
• The main hormonal changes and neuroendocrine changes in psychiatric disorders.
• An understanding of the effects of inflammation and the immune response on neural function and the onset/maintenance of psychiatric illness.