Science in general, and neuroscience in particular, has greatly benefited from interdisciplinary interactions. For example, the discovery of the double helix of DNA involved a biologist and a physicist. In neuroscience, the workings of the brain have been studied by people from such diverse academic disciplines as philosophy, physics, physiology, biochemistry, mathematics, computer science, and psychology. Through the collaboration of specialists from varying disciplines, different perspectives may be brought to bear on problems: physiologists are interested in the mechanisms of action of drugs on the nervous system; behaviorists are concerned with the resultant behaviors; biochemists and chemists focus on the individual structural components (proteins, mRNA, etc.) that determine the physiology; computational neuroscientists focus on understanding the algorithms that are used to process information and make decisions. It is not possible to be an expert in all of these fields, but by working within a Research Center, persons with individual expertise can interact with each other and get a better understanding of the system than they could do alone. A Neuroscience Research Day during the Spring semester of each year will allow faculty and students to present to the general community their efforts relating to research in the general area of Neuroscience conducted at Queens College or in associated venues, and bring in distinguished speakers in the field of Neuroscience. In addition, a biweekly seminar series will be instituted to allow investigations of an individual research group at Queens College to be presented to the general College community.

Members of the Center have already been successful in securing funding for augmented research training and student support, including the establishment of a five-year NIH MARC program at Queens College for underrepresented minorities in the biomedical research sciences, and a four-year Howard Hughes Undergraduate Science Education Program grant. The Center Faculty has produced over 800 peer-reviewed publications over the past 15 years, with nearly 300 in the past five years alone. Since 1990, the Center Faculty has also received funding for 51 external and 54 internal grants.