If you’re attending the Society for Neuroscience meeting this year (#SfN13), join us for our panel discussion: ‘Tackling the terabyte: how should research adapt to the era of big data? Read more
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
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
This is a guest post in our #NPGsfn11 blog series and posted on behalf of Jason Snyder. This is cross-posted at Functional Neurogenesis. Previously, I wrote about new SfN data on the role for newborn neurons in regulating emotion. The second half of the SfN meeting rounded out the story because the bulk of the functional presentations focused on the role of new neurons in that other, classic function of the hippocampus: memory. Spanning synaptic plasticity, circuit function, and then linking it all to behavior, we have quite a complete story here. Read more
This is a guest post in our #NPGsfn11 blog series and posted on behalf of Zen Faulkes. Browsing through the Neuroscience poster session, I was stopped by an unusual title. Almost all the posters around me featured mice, but I spotted “vole” in the title of this poster. I had to find out why these scientists zigged when all the others zagged. The presenter, A.M. Anacker, had a great answer. Prairie voles are well known for pair bonding. This is the vole equivalent to going steady or marriage. This has been the subject of some very elegant neuroethology, which was … Read more
This is a guest post in our #NPGsfn11 blog series and posted on behalf of Lucas Glover. In 1999, the functional organization of the hippocampus became a little more complicated. A functional double dissociation was identified (also here) between the two parts of this structure, the dorsal (dHPC) and ventral hippocampus (vHPC.) Since then, much research has focused on the dHPC and its role in spatial memory processing, but much less has been done on the vHPC. The vHPC is known to be involved in mediating anxiety-like behaviors and I sought out a cutting edge update on this proposed functional … Read more
This is a guest post in our #NPGsfn11 blog series and posted on behalf of Sandra Upson. This also appears on Scientific American’s Observations blog. Read more
This is a guest post in our #NPGsfn11 blog series and posted on behalf of Gary Stix and is cross-posted at the Scientific American Observations blog. Read more
This is a guest post in our #NPGsfn11 blog series and posted on behalf of Scicurious. Read more
This is a guest post in our #NPGsfn11 blog series and posted on behalf of Paola Giusti Rodríguez. As the majority of the 30,000+ attendees of the Society for Neuroscience (SfN) 2011 meeting scurried off to all numerous satellite events and social gatherings, a few hundred mobilized on Saturday night towards Hall E at the Washington Convention Center for the “Career Development Topics: A Mentoring and Networking Event”. The event was organized by the Society’s Professional Development Committee to provide mentoring opportunities and professional guidance to neuroscientists across all educational levels. Meeting a mentor among the 30,000+ attendees may seem … Read more
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