<p>I heard that there are three types of neuroscience: neuroscience based on psychology, neuroscience based on biology,and neuroscience based on computer science.</p>
<p>I am mostly interested in neuroscience based on psychology.</p>
<p>Then what should I major in?</p>
<p>Neurosciene or neuropsychology or psychology?? </p>
<p>Does anyone know about this?</p>
<p>Ideally, as an undergraduate, you’d like exposure to all the ways that neuroscience is contributing to our understanding of biology, psychology, computer science, philosophy, linguistics, aesthetics, ethics, evolution, and I could go on and on. It’s a huge field of inquiry and very promising, so lots of academic resources are being thrown at it and will be for at least a half century. Many, many colleges are sinking resources into it, but they’re doing it in a variety of ways. Some schools are taking a very biological approach to it; for example, UMD, OSU, and several other state flagships. Even though these schools also have strengths in many of the fields I mentioned above, they have not set up their neuro curriculum to take advantage of these strengths. This is not a criticism but an observation: if you want to get exposure to a less biological/more diverse neurosci at the u/g level, you will have to find room in your course load for them while also taking what is basically a bio major’s courses: 3 biologies, 1 genetics, 2 chem, 2 orgo, etc. At the other extreme are the less frequent programs like the one at Bard where they try to do all things for all interests and inevitably wear themselves thin because they are not a large college with large resources. Still, these programs can offer the major an opportunity and encouragement to explore neuro in a much more interdisciplinary and independent way while still getting the science courses one would expect in a natural science major. In between the bio-based neuro and the max interdisciplinary neuro might be a program like WashU’s Philosophy-Neuroscience-Psychology or Lehigh’s more integrated cogsci program which emphasizes exposure to computer science, linguistics, psychology, anthropology, philosophy, etc. Having said this, the future of neuroscience is material; that is, it is based in biology. So wherever you go, you want to make sure that there is plenty of biology required and/or plenty of bio in the neurosci you take. Biology doesn’t rule out psychology or anything else, but it limits what neuro will allow us to say about the other fields and you need to get that bio/genetics/molecular underpinning, in my estimation, especially if you intend to enter graduate school in neuroscience or cognitive science. Since you’re interested in psychology, you might also want to look at cognitive science programs as well as neuroscience programs. They sometimes have different emphases. If I can be of further help, let me know.</p>