Welcome
Welcome to the website of the biopsychology program at George Mason University. Here you can find information about the biopsychology graduate programs the University offers, including program requirements and application forms; information about financial aid and other support; and individual pages for our professors and students, detailing the research they are working on, CVs, and posters/publications. There are also useful links to internal and external resources, like Students in Neuroscience and the Society for Neuroscience. So look around, and feel free to contact us with any questions you have. Thanks for visiting!
What is biopsychology?
Biopsychology is the study of the biological bases of behavior: how the brain affects behavior. The growth in our understanding of this relationship has been one of the major scientific developments of the last 50 years. Biopsychology includes human and animal studies of the role of specific brain regions and neurochemical factors in behavior. Examples include examining the effect of drugs and their mechanisms of action; the biological bases of learning; behavioral problems associated with damage to specific brain regions; and anatomical and chemical correlates of mental illnesses. Careers in this area often include a strong research component. Our students have gone on to jobs such as university and college faculty positions, research at pharmaceutical companies, and positions with government labs, such as the National Institutes of Health (NIH).
Biopsychology at George Mason University
George Mason University offers M.A. and Ph.D. degrees in Biopsychology. Undergraduates may apply to the Accelerated M.A. in the second semester of their junior year. The department, together with the Krasnow Institute and the Center for Biomedical Genomics and Informatics (CBGI) at the Prince William campus, provides a wide range of current genetic, neurobiological, and behavioral measurement techniques. Faculty areas of specialization include cognition and aging (Chrosniak), neurobehavioral effects of drug exposure in pregnancy and adolescence (Smith), comparative neuroanatomy (Butler), hippocampal modelling and informatics (Ascoli), the role of metals in learning and memory and Alzheimer's disease (Flinn), neuronal stability and toxicology (Schiff), and schizophrenia and related disorders (Bachus).
