What's the best undergrad degree for a neuroscience PhD? Aside from ayy lmao psychology

What about computer engineering? Would you say the understanding of how software derives from hardware is applicable to understanding how metal processes derive from the brain? Or is that too much if a stretch?

CompE here. It would be better than CS but really I would not recommend either if your plan is neurscience for grad school. I would guess something like microbiology or chemistry would be best

> I will be unhappy in just about any other job, so I have to at least get the satisfaction of saying I tried

How many jobs have you actually had?

literally EE

Not many. I was over-exaggerating a bit about being totally unhappy anywhere else, but I don't have any other job that appeals to me as much as much as neuroscience, and I just know I'll regret not trying.

That's one degree I'm considering. But I don't know if it would be better to do EE or CE.

>neuroscience

We know nothing on how the brain works and will continue to know nothing.

Analog > digital for neuroscience, pick EE

Bioinformatics if your school has anything like that

Neuroscientists these days do a lot of programming, so make sure you are good at that.

>we know nothing on how the brain works and will continue to know nothing

But we know mechanistically how neurons fire and send signals, and for sensory neurons we have it actually pretty well mapped out. The gap in knowledge comes with trying to figure out how the logic circuits in the brain work, which will hopefully be elucidated, at least in part, by programs/projects like the connectome.

Much like how we had a huge gap in knowledge for genetics before we sequenced the whole genome, and in the process of constructing it made up a new field of "Genomics", it could very well be that these kinds of efforts will spawn a field tangent to neuroscience called "Connectomics". Gives me a fucking chubber just thinking about it, desu.

MD/PhD student here... PhD in neuroscience... did undergrad in neuroscience... highly recommend you just do CS, EE, or pure math for undergrad. Do not do undergrad in a biology subfield. It is crazy competitive and you probably won't make it. Honestly, undergrad in bio probably hurts you when you get to grad level. If I could go back I would've done electrical engineering.

I second this. If you look at top neuroscientists, particularly comp neuro, they all have math/physics/engineering backgrounds.

Yeah, so far EE seems like the way to go, I'll probably end up going with that.

It depends what scale you're interested in.

EE is best for understanding circuitry and currents. If you want to do anything hands-on, whether research or surgery, EE is your best bet. Look up voltage clamps, they are used to measure spike trains in axons.

If you're more interested in theory and information processing, CS is a good bet. Neural nets are a bit of a meme but still very useful for many applications. CS is relatively easy so make sure to take some psych classes if theyre not complete garbage.

If you're interested in synapses and neurotransmitters, biochem is probably your best choice. I would recommend ChemE over biochem but only if the program has a good bio track ie isnt solely focused on pumping out process engineers for DuPont and 3M.

What if you are interested in brain computer interfaces?

EE/ CompSci for sure. Try building and programming a robot in your own time as well. Brain-computer interfaces is not for pussies and if you're going to do it you've got to jump in head first.

Read this page en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neuroimaging. See if you can build an MEG on your own.