Comprehensive Neuroscience Center (CNC) (Pilot Developmental University-Wide Interdisciplinary Research Center)

Director: Kevin Roth, MD, PhD

Established: September 15, 2006

Mission and Demographics

The mission of the Comprehensive Neuroscience Center (CNC) is to enhance interdisciplinary neuroscience research, clinical care, and education at UAB. The Center integrates a variety of disciplines, including neurology, psychiatry, neurobiology, neurosurgery, psychology, vision science, and biomedical engineering. Faculty from the Schools of Medicine, Optometry, Social and Behavioral Sciences, Dentistry, Engineering, Health Professions, and Public Health are affiliated with the Center. The need to address neuroscience research is great: one in three Americans are affected by nervous system diseases including brain and spinal cord injury, dementing illnesses, schizophrenia, depression, movement disorders, multiple sclerosis, and autism. The burden of these diseases has an estimated economic cost of $500 billion per year in the United States.

Center Research

The CNC serves as a vital center for neuroscience research at UAB and oversees six thematic programs of investigation: neurodevelopment and neurogenetics, neurodegeneration and experimental therapeutics, neuroregeneration and plasticity, behavioral and cognitive health, glial biology in medicine, and neuroimaging. The CNC helps coordinate the efforts of multiple neuroscience related centers at UAB, such as the Center for Glial Biology in Medicine, the Evelyn F. McKnight Brain Institute, the Civitan International Research Center, and the Alzheimer’s Disease Research Center. By interacting directly with these centers and establishing coalitions of centers and neuroscience subdisciplines, the CNC aids the UAB neuroscience community in meeting the challenges of modern neuroscience investigation.

The CNC builds on other recent advances in neuroscience at UAB, including an $8.6 million grant from the National Institutes of Health to establish the Alabama Neuroscience Blueprint Core Center Facility awarded in September 2006. The Neuroscience Blueprint establishes research infrastructure on campus that is shared by investigators from institutions across Alabama and the Southeast. UAB has also added dynamic new leadership in the neuroscience fields including the following new chairs: Ray L. Watts, MD, Neurology (from Emory University); David Sweatt, PhD, Neurobiology (from Baylor College of Medicine); and James Meador-Woodruff, MD, Psychiatry (from the University of Michigan).

For additional information:

Director: Kevin Roth, MD, PhD

Email: karoth@uab.edu

Phone: 205-934-5802

Administrator: Angela L. Schmeckebier

Email: alsgigi@uab.edu

Phone: 205-934-8344

Approved by: Kevin Roth, MD, PhD, Director

Date: April 3, 2008

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