THE Official SfN 2011 Party Review

This is a guest post in our #NPGsfn11 blog series and posted on behalf of Dr. Becca. Saturday One of the most fun things about being a new professor is that I now call everyone I know in any kind of sciencey capacity my “colleague,” instead of “friend” or “quasi-mentor” or “ex-labmate” or “co-faculty person” or whatever. It feels insanely grown-up. So a colleague hosted a little fête at the Washington Plaza on Saturday and it was heaps of fun. Nice hotel bar! The open, loungey layout was perfect for modular mingling in style and that’s exactly what I did,  … Read more

Human Brain Maps Flip During Spatial Navigation

This is a guest post in our #NPGsfn11 blog series and posted on behalf of Moheb Costandi. The brain encodes two distinct maps of the route from one location to another and switches between the two at different phases of the journey, according to new research presented earlier this week at the annual meeting of the Society for Neuroscience in Washington, D.C. We know that a brain structure called the hippocampus, in the medial temporal lobe, is essential for spatial navigation and for encoding spatial memories. It contains at least four different cell types that encode maps of the environment,  … Read more