Neuroscience: What Do You Really Study?
From nerve cell to consciousness and behavior - to explore how the brain perceives, learns, decides and changes.
What Do You Study in Neuroscience? Core Subjects, Year by Year
What do the degree courses cover?
Open a course to learn about its main topics and see what the work looks like in practice.
What do you learn in the course?Cell Biology for Neuroscience?
You learn how cells are built, communicate and maintain themselves, a basis for understanding nerve cells, support cells and the development of the nervous system.
Main topics
- Membranes and organelles
- cellular signaling
- Gene expression and cell division
What does it look like in practice?
Explain how a change in an ion channel in the membrane can change the activity of a nerve cell.
What do you learn in the course?Chemistry for Neuroscience?
Build a basis for understanding relationships, reactions and concentrations that makes it possible to explain neurotransmitters, drugs and molecular processes in the brain.
Main topics
- structure and connections
- Acids, bases and equilibrium
- Basic organic chemistry
What does it look like in practice?
Calculation of how a change in acidity affects the charge and passage of a molecule through a membrane.
What do you learn in the course?Introduction to Psychology?
Get to know scientific approaches to the study of perception, emotion, learning, personality and behavior and connect a psychological phenomenon to a mechanism that can be tested.
Main topics
- perception and cognition
- learning and emotion
- Development and individual differences
What does it look like in practice?
Designing an experiment that examines how attentional load affects what people remember.
What do you learn in the course?Statistics for Neuroscience?
You learn to summarize data, quantify uncertainties and check if a mental or behavioral pattern is greater than the fluctuations expected by chance.
Main topics
- Data description
- Confidence intervals and tests
- Correlation and regression
What does it look like in practice?
Testing whether reaction time is different between two experimental conditions and to what extent.
What do you learn in the course?Neuroanatomy?
You study the structure of the brain, the spinal cord and the neural pathways and the relationship between location, connectivity and function.
Main topics
- Brain and cortex areas
- Rails go up and down
- Nerves and brainstem
What does it look like in practice?
Tracing a sensory signal path from the hand to the cortical area that processes it.
Frequently Asked Questions About Neuroscience
Is a degree in Neuroscience difficult?
There is no single answer — difficulty depends on your background, the institution, and your chosen study pace. According to this site's estimate, The degree has a meaningful quantitative component that requires regular practice, but it is not the central focus of the program, and a large share of the reading material is in English. A good way to assess fit is to review the course map on this page: if most of the subjects interest you, the effort will usually feel worthwhile.
How long does a degree in Neuroscience take?
Usually 3–4 years (A multidisciplinary degree that combines science, psychology and research). Exact duration varies by institution and depends on course load and the track you choose.
Neuroscience or Biotechnology — which is right for me?
The degrees most closely related to Neuroscience are Biotechnology, Marine Sciences, and Biology. Their differences are usually in emphasis rather than the overall subject, so the fastest way to decide is to compare their course maps — what you actually study in each program, year by year. You can also open the degree comparison tool to view the differences side by side.