Schmitt Program on Integrative Neuroscience (SPIN)

The Schmitt Program on Integrative Neuroscience (SPIN) is a campus-wide initiative to promote our understanding of the nervous system and its disorders. The Program emphasizes interdisciplinary and collaborative approaches to novel and creative research and training that uniquely exploit talents from multiple laboratories across traditional institutional boundaries.

Despite the generally acknowledged need and interest in ground-breaking approaches to biomedical research, recognition and funding through traditional support structures such as the National Institutes of Health (NIH) are difficult since these projects are inherently new and untested. The SPIN targets such high-risk but potentially high-impact initiatives in order to generate exciting preliminary research that will catalyze future support by the NIH and other major sources. The wisdom of this Program’s mission is apparent in the extraordinary grant acquisition rate witnessed by its supported investigators over the years.

The SPIN accomplishes its goals through the support of new research projects, training fellowships, visiting scientists, and symposia that fall within three areas:

• Learning, Plasticity, and Memory
• The Senses and Behavior
• The Neurobiology of Aging and Disease

The Program is broadly interested in neuroscience at all levels, from cognitive and systems to cellular and molecular approaches.

The Program is sponsored by the Department of Neuroscience, and by the Kilian J. and Caroline F. Schmitt Foundation. A Program Committee governs the selection process for the support mechanisms described above. The Program is administered through the Department of Neuroscience.