PhD in Clinical Neuroscience

Macroscopic and microscopic organisation of the human nervous system, tract tracing, and anatomical substrates of clinical syndromes.

Membrane biophysics, synaptic transmission, oscillatory dynamics and electrophysiological recording in human and animal preparations.

Neuronal and glial cell biology, receptor signalling cascades, gene regulation and molecular techniques used in neuroscience research.

Sensory, motor and associative systems; circuit-level computation and large-scale network organisation of the brain.

Neural bases of attention, memory, language, executive control and consciousness, with the experimental paradigms that probe them.

Neural induction, migration, synaptogenesis, critical periods and the developmental origins of neuropsychiatric conditions.

Mechanisms of synaptic and structural plasticity, recovery after injury, and the evidence base for neurorehabilitation.

Hypothalamic–pituitary axes, stress physiology, hormonal modulation of behaviour and endocrine contributions to mental health.

Neuroimmune signalling, microglial function, neuroinflammation and immune mechanisms in neurological and psychiatric disease.

Receptor pharmacology, pharmacokinetics and the mechanisms, efficacy and limits of psychotropic and neurological medications.

Brain–behaviour relationships, motivation, reward, learning and the design and interpretation of behavioural assays.

Pathophysiology, assessment and management of major neurological and psychiatric disorders, from a translational perspective.

Cognitive assessment, lesion–deficit inference, syndrome analysis and evidence-based neuropsychological formulation.

MRI, fMRI, DTI, EEG/MEG and PET: acquisition physics, preprocessing pipelines, statistical modelling and reproducible reporting.

Measurement theory, multivariate analysis, modelling of nested data and quantitative reasoning for neuroscience research.

Statistical inference, generalised linear models, power analysis, multiple comparisons and reproducible statistical workflows.

Design of experimental and quasi-experimental studies, randomisation, control of confounds, preregistration and bias reduction.

Structuring research manuscripts, responding to peer review, authorship conventions and open-access publication practice.

Human and animal research ethics, informed consent, data protection and institutional ethics review procedures.

Moving findings from laboratory to clinic: biomarkers, trial design, implementation science and evaluation of clinical impact.

Literature synthesis and identification of a viable doctoral research problem.

Methodological critique and refinement of the candidate's research questions.

Study design, instrumentation and analysis plan presented to peers and supervisors.

Pilot data, feasibility assessment and ethics documentation.

Data collection progress, quality control and preliminary analyses.

Advanced analysis, interpretation and robustness checks.

Manuscript development and preparation for peer review.

Synthesis of findings and rehearsal of the public dissertation defence.

Formal written proposal with rationale, design, analysis plan and ethics approval, approved by the doctoral committee.

Execution of the original research project under supervision, including data collection and analysis.

Preparation of the full dissertation manuscript to publication standard.

Public defence of the dissertation before an academic committee.