PROJECT SUMMARY Brain diseases such as Alzheimer's disease, glioma, Parkinson's disease, and amyotrophic lateral sclerosis devastate the lives of millions of patients and their families. Despite decades of research costing billions of dollars, these and other brain diseases sorely lack diagnostic tools, effective disease- modifying therapies, adequate symptomatic managements, or even well-defined mechanistic causes. These failures stand out particularly in light of incredible advances in basic scientific knowledge. Thus there is a critical need for clinicians to be involved in basic research on human brain disease since they are well suited to identify new treatments. The University of Iowa Clinical Neuroscientist Training Program is designed as a more efficient pathway to train outstanding neurology and neurosurgery residents in basic research, with the goal of increasing the percentage of trainees who continue in a long career as productive clinician-scientists.