Scores of Picower Institute researchers traded a view of leaves falling along the north bank of the Charles River for that of palm trees along the shore of the San Diego Bay Nov. 3-7. The Society for Neuroscience Annual Meeting is all about expanding one’s perspectives, both by seeing the latest work of other neuroscientists and showing one’s own to them.
The mammoth conference, which this year drew nearly 30,000 people from all over the globe, annually presents a huge opportunity for neuroscientists to network, hear about broad trends in the field, keep tabs on what other labs are up to, and to browse the latest lab equipment. But for one moment, be it at a poster or at a lectern, those who are presenting have a forum to influence the field to and sample the field’s feedback by sharing their latest work.
In all, Picower faculty members, postdocs and students presented more than 40 talks and posters on topics ranging from brain circuits underlying compulsive drinking, to hippocampus cells that track the order in which experiences happen, to the brain mechanisms underlying anesthesia, to advances in microscopy. Kwanghun Chung co-chaired and spoke at a symposium on whole-brain tissue imaging and analysis, Kay Tye moderated a press conference on the neuroscience of social behavior, and faculty members such as Earl Miller, Li-Huei Tsai and Tye spoke at some of the myriad satellite events that surround the conference. Miller presented his new model of working memory (see p. 3), Tye discussed how the brain assigns positive or negative feelings to memories, and Tsai discussed her lab’s research on the APOE4 gene variant that conveys an elevated risk of Alzheimer’s disease.
In the aggregate, Picower presenters demonstrated many ways in which the Institute’s research contributes to the broader field. In turn, the questions and comments they received from colleagues at the conference provided them valuable ideas as well.
Above: Sur lab postdocs Jennifer Shih and Chloe Delepine were among dozens of Picower researchers who shared their latest research at the Society for Neuroscience Annual Meeting Nov. 3-7 in San Diego.
This was the third SfN for Nicole Aponte Santiago, a graduate student in the lab of Professor Troy Littleton. This year she presented twice. On Nov. 4 she spoke on a panel offering advice about professional networking and the next day displayed a poster on experiments probing how the competitive interplay that arises when multiple neurons connect to the same muscle affects the development and growth of those connections.
Two years ago, when she last attended the conference, her project was just getting started. She said that visitors to her poster shared valuable thoughts and suggestions about the research and a lot of encouragement that it would be valuable.
“People were showing a lot of interest in my project which made me even more excited and made me feel that OK, this is something useful for people in my field,” she recalled. “People were excited to see what results I would get.”
This year some of those same people returned to her to her poster, she said, and they were excited to see how the experiments have been taking shape. Visitors asked good questions and offered interesting interpretations of her results as well as ideas for new experiments and methods, she said, providing her a new dose of encouragement.
Chen Sun explains his research to a throng of visitors.
Visitor traffic kept some poster presenters on their feet and surrounded for hours, ringed by a crowds four or five people deep. Chen Sun, a graduate student in Susumu Tonegawa’s lab spent the entire afternoon of Nov. 6 energetically explaining his research showing that “serial” cells in the hippocampus uniquely keep track of sequences of events – such as laps in a race. For the whole afternoon his audience was never less than about a dozen people.
Josiah Boivin, a postdoc in the lab of Professor Elly Nedivi, fielded a slew of questions as he discussed the lab’s innovative two-photon microscope that radically speeds up imaging by scanning a whole line at a time rather than point by point. He plans to use the technology to more closely monitor and study the frequent assembly and removal of inhibitory neural connections, or synapses, in live animals, which could help explain how neural connections change with experience.
Tsai lab graduate student Mitchell Murdock, meanwhile, entertained strong traffic at a poster describing how he uses a technique called Archon, developed in Professor Ed Boyden lab, that engineers neurons to visually report their electrical activity by glowing, which can make measuring electrical activity easier. Murdock, who studies Alzheimer’s disease, is using the technology to determine the role of individual cells in the apparent breakdown of key brain rhythms in the condition.
Posters and talks are grouped by topic at SfN so Picower presenters were often together. Chloe Delepine and Jennifer Shih, postdocs in the lab of Mriganka Sur, stood side by side Tuesday morning amid a gaggle of visitors as they explained how the activity of non-neural brain cells called astrocytes appear to be indicative of and influential in the activity of neurons in the motor cortex as mice learn new movement tasks. Andre Bastos, a postdoc in the Miller lab and Jason Shefrey, a Miller lab collaborator at Boston University, were cornered back-to-back among a throng of inquirers into their research on how brain rhythms govern the flow of information in the cortex and other brain regions. And directly on the other side of the poster wall from Boivin’s poster on rapid imaging of synapses was that of Littleton lab graduate student Elizabeth Brija, who studies how RNA editing regulates a protein called complexin, which is an important component in how synapses change in response to activity.
Littleton lab members Elizabeth Brija, Nicole Aponte Santiago and Monica Quiñones celebrate their presence at SfN 2018. Image courtesy Aponte
At different times the Chung and Tye labs each commanded neighborhoods four or five posters long. Tye lab members Cody Siciliano, a postdoc, and Habiba Noamany, an undergraduate at her first SfN, reported on different aspects of how a particular circuit between the prefrontal cortex and a deep region called the periaqueductal gray appears key to encoding aversive experiences. When the circuit is inhibited, they found, animals are more likely to disregard aversive stimuli including ones that would otherwise curb their consumption of alcohol. The Chung lab, meanwhile, showed off several new techniques in the lab dedicated to exposing, preserving and labeling the brain’s full anatomy, connectivity, and functionality for imaging at scales from molecules and synapses to the whole organ. At his talk on Nov. 6, Chung described how he’s brought this suite of tools to collaborations with Tsai, to locate harmful proteins early in Alzheimer’s disease, and with Tonegawa to trace memory engrams all around the brain. He also mentioned his new grant to map the entire human brain.
With a crowd big enough that people were standing in the back, Miller lab graduate student Jacob Donoghue described how general anesthesia causes information flow among brain regions to become incoherent and fragmented but that consciousness can rapidly be restored by stimulating the thalamus. Speaking the next day, two members of Professor Matt Wilson’s lab, postdoc Honi Sanders and research scientist Hector Penagos, discussed their studies using rodent experiments and theoretical models to understand how representations among hippocampal neurons allow the brain to learn and remember the distinguishing features of environments and how to best navigate environments to maximize rewards.
Was SfN itself a rewarding experience? Aponte said she drew inspiration from her encounters at the conference. And so did Sun, even after explaining his poster on serial cells at marathon length yet at the pace of a full sprint. Like a distance runner, he described feeling both elated and exhausted when it was all over.
“They were very enthusiastic,” Sun said of his audience. “Because they were very enthusiastic, it kind of feeds back. That’s why four hours felt like half an hour.”
Mixing joy and resolve, event celebrates women in science and addresses persistent inequalities
October 2, 2024
Picower Events
Mixing joy and resolve, event celebrates women in science and addresses persistent inequalities
The Kuggie Vallee Distinguished Lectures and Workshops presented inspiring examples of success, even as the event evoked frank discussions of the barriers that still hinder many women scientists.
