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Society for Neuroscience OR/SW WA Chapter Meeting
March 8 - March 9
WHAT: Society for Neuroscience OR/SW WA Chapter Annual Meeting
WHERE: McMenamins Edgefield, 2126 SW Halsey Street, Troutdale, OR
WHEN: Friday, March 8 – Saturday, March 9, 2024
From their website: “The Society for Neuroscience is the world’s largest organization of scientists and physicians devoted to understanding the brain and nervous system.”
This year’s Chapter theme: Neuroinflammation and the Aging Brain
LEARN MORE: Molecular Mechanisms of Neuroinflammation in Aging and Alzheimer’s Disease Progression
LEARN MORE: Systemic inflammation as a predictor of brain aging
NW Noggin volunteers include neuroscience undergraduates, graduate students, postdocs and artists, and both individually and collectively we present and attend local chapter meetings and international conferences for the Society for Neuroscience (SfN).
LEARN MORE: NOGGIN & SfN
NW NOGGIN ABSTRACT
Las neuronas son bacanes: interdisciplinary neuroscience in Valparaíso Chile
GRIESAR, W.S.124, LEAKE, J.123
1Department of Psychology, Portland State University; 2NW Noggin (nwnoggin.org); 3Department of University Studies, Portland State University; 4Department of Behavioral Neuroscience, Oregon Health & Science University
POSTER_Noggin_SfN_Chapter_2024
Nonprofit nwnoggin.org organizes collaboration around interdisciplinary neuroscience, going places to explore brains, hear stories, make art and see where research discoveries can contribute. Portland State University in Portland, OR offers a minor in interdisciplinary neuroscience, where Noggin co-founders Dr. Bill Griesar and Jeff Leake both teach. In 2023, we reached out to artists and STEM colleagues at the Universidad de Valparaíso Chile. Along with the PSU Education Abroad Office and Academic Programs International we created Cerebrarte, the first international, homestay-based STEAM program exploring the rich art and neuroscience traditions of the Valparaíso region. We brought 17 students and two faculty to Chile from July 27 – August 28, 2023. Through visits to labs and the historic complex at Montemar, we explored how research on the giant axons of Humboldt squid contributed to our understanding of the electrical signaling that links our perceptual and cognitive experiences to the world. We met Dr. Ramón LaTorre and Dr. Juan Saez (members of the National Academy of Sciences), Dr. David Naranjo, Dr. Jesús Olivares, Dr. John Ewer and Dr. Kate Whitlock, and graduate students and postdocs for discussions about olfaction, voltage-gated channels, spider neurons and potential therapeutic compounds in boldo tea. We welcomed Kings College London neuroscientist Dr. Richard Wingate, Editor of brainfacts.org, the outreach arm of Society for Neuroscience, who spoke about his 2023 book, “The Story of the Brain in 10 ½ Cells,” with the ½ Cell referencing the giant axon. Valpo is home to exceptional research, and is a celebrated center of public art. Street art was legalized in 1990, and eye-catching murales are everywhere. Students examined art with thiscatcallededdie, explored regional museums, created engravings (grabados), and sewed arpilleras, woven depictions of challenging and sometimes traumatic experiences that allow emotional expression and create durable memories of events with artist Cecilia Araneda. We explored the neuroscience of perception, stress and trauma as it relates to personal experience (including aspects of culture shock), research, art and the 50th year since El Golpe, the US-backed coup that violently overthrew democratically elected President Salvador Allende in 1973. The program culminated in a visit to Ciencia al Tiro, a STEAM outreach nonprofit where we made pipe cleaner brain cells and took them to the streets to speak with residents of Playa Ancha sobre porque las neuronas son bacanes (why neurons are cool). Cerebrarte was an exciting, interdisciplinary, intercultural, international experience, and will occur again in 2025.
LEARN MORE: Las neuronas son bacánes!
NOGGIN PRESENTS SATURDAY, MARCH 9
CEREBRARTE SLIDES (ppt): NW Noggin SfN Chapter Presentation 2024
CEREBRARTE SLIDES (pdf): NW Noggin SfN Chapter Presentation 2024
