The University of Chicago has a long tradition of innovative research in the neurosciences. K. C. Cole developed the voltage clamp here, Stephen Polyak and C. J. Herrick did pioneering work on the anatomy of the retina and brain, and Jack Cowan and Hugh Wilson were among the first to develop mathematical analyses of the dynamics of cortical neurons using non-linear dynamics.

This tradition is continued in Graduate Program in Computational Neuroscience, which provides an interdepartmental and interdivisional focus for multidisciplinary training in neuroscience.