The Department of Neurology at UCLA was founded by Augustus S. Rose, MD, in the 1950s in the UCLA School of Medicine. The department grew from a few faculty members in that era to more than 100 in present times. The department is also the home to 125 trainees and is associated with seven affiliated hospitals.

The faculty of the Department of Neurology are distinguished scientists and clinicians who have been ranked #1 or #2 in NIH funding since 2002. New and renovated laboratory space typifies the efficient, effective and handsome surroundings in which the department is situated. The Department of Neurology is divided into disease-specific and method-specific programs including all of the major categories of neurological diseases and methods that include neurogenetics and neuroimaging as well as health services research. The faculty of the department represent a distinguished group of leaders in United States neurology. They chair many of the courses at national meetings and are the authors of many noted textbooks on subdisciplines in neurology. The faculty are accessible to trainees and well known nationally and internationally.

The Neurology Residency Training Program in the Department of Neurology at UCLA began in the 1960s, at a time when the department moved to the Reed Neurological Research Center. The Department of Neurology is also the founding division of the Neuropsychiatric Institute, recently renamed the Jane and Terry Semel Institute for Neuroscience and Human Behavior. Many faculty also belong to the UCLA Brain Research Institute.

The department and its faculty, trainees and staff are part of a larger UCLA neuroscience community. On the UCLA campus, more than 250 faculty are neuroscientists—making this discipline the largest single entity on the entire campus. This has resulted in a tremendous building program with many laboratory buildings committed to neurogenetics, cellular and systems neuroscience.

The Neurology Department enjoys cordial and collegial relationships and integrated research and clinical programs with the Division of Neurosurgery, the Department of Psychiatry, the Division of Neuroradiology and many more. This seamless integration of both research and clinical activities as well as education facilitates all of these critical missions and the scholarship they produce.

In June 2008, the Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center opened immediately adjacent to a large, three-building, ambulatory care complex. Clinical neurosciences in the Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical center are unique. Not only is there a large neurology-neurosurgery ward with all private rooms, but also a 26-bed neuro intensive care unit and a telemetry unit for monitoring epilepsy patients. The neuro ICU is the only such facility in the world to include a 3 Tesla MRI scanner as well as a PET-CT instrument. The location of these devices within the neuro ICU has made it possible, for the first time, to observe such acute clinical situations as the progression and resolution of ischemic stroke, traumatic brain injury, cerebral hemorrhage, vasospasm and many others. Previously, patients were too unstable for imaging and had to remain in the ICU, separated from these critical clinical and research tools.

The David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA is located on the UCLA campus in Westwood Village in Los Angeles. The University is surrounded by the Santa Monica Mountains, Beverly Hills, Bel Air and Brentwood. The Santa Monica beaches are five miles to the west and the San Gabriel Mountains and ski resorts are within a few hours drive to the east as are the desert communities of Palm Springs and Rancho Mirage.