MSc Neuroscience and Neurodegeneration

Overview

During this online distance learning neuroscience course, you’ll study the fundamentals of neuroscience, neuroanatomy and neurobiology and learn how insights from the laboratory are translated into treatments for patients.

Neurodegenerative diseases increase in prevalence with age and are becoming ever more common with the ageing population. They result in a large number of years of disability, considerable burden on families and carers, and massive health and social care costs. This problem is highlighted by the recent EU Joint Programme for Neurodegenerative Disease Research.  Despite recent neuroscience advances in understanding the underlying pathophysiology of these conditions, no disease-modifying therapy has come into neuroscience clinical practice for the most common neurological conditions, with existing treatments addressing individual symptoms. However, recent advances with oligonucleotide-based therapy for spinal muscular atrophy, and antibody and stem cell-based therapies for multiple sclerosis, lend optimism for the future.

This neuroscience online distance learning course enables you to apply the fundamentals of neuroscience, neuroanatomy and neurobiology to better understand the clinical features of patients with neurodegenerative disease, the molecular and cellular mechanisms underpinning these devastating disorders, and learn how insights from the laboratory can be translated into benefits for patients. It is focused around areas of research strength in Sheffield, including motor neurone disease, Parkinson’s disease, multiple sclerosis, Alzheimer’s disease and other forms of dementia and brain disorders.

Our MSc neuroscience course follows an innovative programme level approach with a balanced portfolio of formative and summative assessment, so as to maximise acquisition of neuroscience knowledge alongside development of postgraduate skills and attributes. Rather than comprising a piecemeal assortment of small modules, the neuroscience course mainly consists of large coherent modules containing themes of content that are developed over the course of each module.