With artificial intelligence’s rapid progress, language models like ChatGPT are entering higher education, offering opportunities and risks. We surveyed faculty and graduate students at Henan Medical University to examine ChatGPT’s role in graduate neuroscience teaching. Quantitative analyses profiled awareness, usage patterns, perceived roles, effectiveness, and concerns. Overall usage remained below 50%. Faculty and students most often used ChatGPT for reference consultation, research support, and academic writing; user experience was generally positive. Respondents reported benefits for information and resource integration (78.42%), comprehension of complex concepts (74.10%), learning interest and engagement (62.59%), personalized learning (50.36%), and timely feedback with abundant resources (65.47%). Nevertheless, participants highlighted challenges including information accuracy, academic integrity, and technological dependence, which could impede independent learning and critical thinking. Many favored broader, well-guided adoption paired with training. We conclude that ChatGPT can meaningfully support graduate neuroscience education when integrated with human instruction, rigorous verification, and clear ethical safeguards. Future work should evaluate learning outcomes longitudinally, develop evidence-based implementation frameworks, and address equity and privacy to realize sustainable impact in specialized domains.