Several undergraduate volunteers from WSU Vancouver and PSU joined us at the Oregon chapter meeting for the Society for Neuroscience on March 27th and 28th in Troutdale…
We presented our colorful poster on the many outreach visits we’ve made during the past academic year, on both sides of the Columbia River…
Students, including Angela Gonzalez and Nathan Allen from WSU, and Alex Voigt and Allie Clark from PSU, gained practice in presenting details of our outreach efforts to research scientists and others attending the conference.
This kind of experience is uncommon at the undergraduate level, but offers a vital opportunity for student mentoring, training, and skill building. It was a chance to introduce our students to the fascinating work done in area research labs, and provide them with insight into potential options to intern, participate, and advance in their careers…
We also enjoyed a talk by Larry Sherman, from the Oregon National Primate Research Center, and also the meeting organizer, who presented captivating research on the role of the scaffolding that restrains plasticity in neural networks (the extracellular matrix) in cognitive impairments associated with chemotherapy (or “chemobrain“).
This was part of a mini symposium offered on Friday afternoon, focused on the neuroscience of cancer, and included compelling presentations by Steven Matsumoto from OHSU, and Patrick Chappell from OSU, and a keynote address on the “ecology” of low grade brain tumors by David Gutmann of Washington University in St. Louis…
That evening we enjoyed dinner, shuffleboard and pool until (very) late!
Saturday’s morning session was kick-started by Allison Coffin from the Department of Neuroscience at WSU Vancouver, who spoke about her research on how to preserve hearing by protecting hair cells, those specialized sensory receptors for sound waves found in the inner ear.
Allison uses a zebrafish model, since unlike mammalian hair cells, found deep in the cochlea and encased in bone, hair cells for these aquatic organisms are easily accessible on the surface of their bodies…
Other notable speakers included Bill Rooney from OHSU, who discussed a potential new way to measure the brain’s metabolic activity using fMRI…
…and Jeffrey Iliff, also at OHSU, who presented fascinating work (along with beautiful movies) about how waste products in the central nervous system are removed by an integrated CSF/vascular “glymphatic” system, particularly during sleep, how this system can be compromised by trauma and aging, and how damage here might relate to Alzheimer’s and other degenerative diseases of the brain…
A terrific learning experience for all involved…