<p>I'm currently a sophomore cognitive science major and I've been thinking about my future options. My original plan was to purely engage in research (in cognitive neuroscience, probably), but recently I've had thoughts about combining this with a medical career in neurology. I'm not sure how this would work or what it would look like--but I've read bios of lots of prominent neuroscientists (Eccles, Kandel, Damasio, Ramachandran, Sacks) and they all had MDs as well. </p>
<p>What do you guys think? Is this feasible, or would it be better to focus on one or the other (PHD in neuroscience or be a neurologist)? If I were to do both, what would my educational trajectory look like?</p>
<p>Thanks for the input!</p>
<p>yes, in fact, there are MD/PhD programs, although they are extremely hard to get into.</p>
<p>As an MD/PHD, does your research HAVE to focus around specifically researching cures/etc., or can it be more theoretical? (e.g. studying the general neuroscience of emotion without explicitly trying to find ways to fix emotional disorders)</p>
<p>MD/PhD programs are incredibly diverse. Not all are “cure oriented.” Some are focussed on much more basic issues. </p>
<p>For example, D1 was accepted into a Bioscience PhD program–the students were in both PhDs and MD/PhDs tracks-- to model human consciousness using quantum theory. </p>
<p>D2 will be working in lab–again a mixture of PhD and MD/PhD students-- this summer that is trying develop a mathematical model to describe the growth processes of gliomas.</p>
<p>Duke has a MD/PhD program in cognitive science that is very theory oriented.</p>