House of Mind

NYU Neuroscience PhD turned Postdoctoral Fellow at Pitt. I started this neuroscience/psych blog as a grad student (2010) to help me remember cool concepts learned during class. Now, I mostly review articles and concepts, summarize new findings, answer questions you may have about neuroscience/psych/the grad school experience.

[houseofmind]

The brain is a complex biological organ of great computational capability that constructs our sensory experiences, regulates our thoughts and emotions, and control our actions.

Eric Kandel

[houseofmind]

Dear Dr. M, I'm interested in persuing a career in neuroscience. A lot of the collages I've been looking at don't have a Neuroscience major. Do you have any sugestions as to what I should pick as a major?

Some suggestions include biology, psychology, engineering, and computational modeling. Neuroscience is a multi-disciplinary field so instead of focusing on particular major I would prioritize a strong foundation of coursework that spans different sub-disciplines in neuroscience (i.e. basics of cell and molecular bio, chemistry, neurobiology, physics, psychology, applied math/statistics, etc.)

[houseofmind]

2 Year Anniversary PD Update

A lot has happened since I last brought you up to speed with my life and academic endeavors. Given that my last update post was over 2 years ago, I wasn’t sure where to start. With that said, this post has been opened and worked on (and opened and worked on, and so forth) so it’s a long one :X If you’re new, welcome! Also, please be sure to check out the list of things I learned during my PhD. 

Spring/Summer 2016

Briefly, I moved to Pittsburgh about a week after that update post. I crammed as much of my stuff as I could along with Fausto (my cat) into a rental car and drove to my new place amidst a snowstorm. I made it there safely (although I had to make an overnight stop that I swear gave my cat anxiety). My new home exceeded my expectations (2 bedroom, living room, kitchen, basement, washer/dryer, short commute < $1,000), but leaving NYC and most of my friends was bittersweet. 

I went into lab the next day after arriving in Pittsburgh. THAT felt really weird because it was when reality hit. New job, new role, new boss (and new style), new techniques, new approaches, new life basically. My first challenge in the lab was learning the “bread and butter” technique: in vivo extracellular recordings of VTA dopamine neurons. Initially, this scared the shit out of me because I had 0 electrophysiology experience so I was worried about how long it would take for me to be decent and start collecting good data. I was trained by the RAP in the lab; I shadowed her for a week and copied down as much as I could. Then, I did an animal every day for a month. That’s about how long it took for me to get comfortable. (Side note: if you move to a lab and need to learn a new technique, my advice is to attack it aggressively until you learn it!). At the beginning I encountered problems such as having my animal bleed too much, giving too much anesthetic, taking too long (a whole day for just one surgery), making bad electrodes, not being able to find dopamine neurons, etc. The really cool part was seeing myself get better: not making the same mistakes, being able to correct mistakes when they happened, becoming faster and more efficient, optimizing my procedure. It was a great reminder of why I love doing science and that I am capable of learning new things :]

Then came the part where my advisor asked me to think of projects related to his prior work and funding. Call this my second challenge in the lab. He suggested a “safe” project and a “pie in the sky” project. I really appreciated his flexibility and willingness to have me choose projects and questions that I cared about, while also offering his guidance and steering me in better directions. After I pored over his grants and (then still in press papers), I came up with 2 ideas and presented my experimental design to the lab. Next, I got to work! During this time I received funding from a T32 program within the Psychiatry at Pitt, which would cover my stipend until I was able to secure my own funding (more on this in Fall 2015). 

Work was interrupted for a couple of days in May that I took off to attend my graduation in NYC. My parents and one of my brothers were able to fly in from Puerto Rico and I was really pleased. I am the only (and first!) PhD in either side of the family so I could tell that this was a big deal to them and that they were really proud of me. Obviously, this made me feel proud of myself :D

Here is a pic of me on graduation day:

After I came back, it was time to get down to business. My first cohort of “real animals” was ready for all the single unit dopamine (DA) neuron recordings I had to do. Even though I had only been doing this technique for ~2 months, I managed to get some interesting preliminary data that my PI was enthusiastic about, he suggested I write an F32 (NIH postdoctoral fellowship grant). For the August deadline, meep! Most of June and July was spent working around the clock to not only gather and analyze the data, but also write the proposal. IT WAS INSANE. During this time, I also traveled to San Sebastián in the Basque Country (within Spain) for the International Society for Developmental Psychobiology (ISDP) meeting. It was my first time out of the country since 2013 and it was quite exciting because I was awarded their dissertation prize! I was only there for 4-5 days but I managed to hang out with my PhD advisor and conference buddies, gave a talk on my dissertation research, meet some pretty cool people from all over,  take in some breathtaking views, eat pintxos, and go to the beach. I guess you could call this my “vacation” over the summer. Finally, the last exciting thing to happen over the summer was that I received an invitation from the American College of Neuropsychopharmacology (ACNP) to attend their annual meeting in December (more on this below). 

Fall/Winter 2015

After submitting my grant, I continued to perform experiments related to my F32 proposal project. I also started generating animals for another project in which I would look at the effects of chronic mild stress (i.e. depression model) in a neurodevelopmental model of schizophrenia-like deficits. I also got the grant score for my initial submission, which I knew was not within funding range so that meant resubmission in the spring. What can you do? During this semester I participated in the weekly career and research development (CARD) seminar, which is oriented towards helping postdocs gain the skills necessary for transitioning into an independent research position. This was required for me to get the T32 $$$, but I would strongly advise anyone who has access to these types of programs to attend! Topics covered included but were not limited to: how to negotiate, conflict management, how to prepare a job talk, authorship, mock K review process, etc... There is also a writing block portion of the seminar in which participants are divided into topic specific mini groups and get feedback from at least 2 other faculty on a weekly basis before grant submission. Besides being able to cultivate a positive and professional relationship with my T32 director, I’d say that the CARD seminar was the best thing about participating in this T32 program. 

In terms of travel and meetings, I attended the SfN 2015 conference in Chicago and I’ve got to say that my experience there was so positive it even made me change my mind about Chicago!!! It was the first time I was attending this meeting without having a poster so I focused on trying to meet the dopamine/electrophysiology folks and attending all the socials I could fit in :D Right after SfN, I went to NYC to visit some friends still in grad school over Thanksgiving. I cannot stress how important it is to keep in touch with your friends and make time for them. Anyhow, I got back and then it was time to fly down to Florida for the ACNP meeting. This was my first official presentation as a PD so I was really nervous (also presenting a new technique, new project, new everything!) but my boss was really supportive and the people that came by my poster were kind, insightful and encouraging. The location is also superb and the science top notch, I think this has dethroned Gordon Amygdala as my favorite meeting (most of those people were here anyway!) and I will definitely keep applying for that travel award for as long as I have to. After ACNP I flew home for Christmas and got an invitation from my advisor to co-author a review paper w/ another PD in the lab. This paper has been published already and can be found here. 

Spring 2016

I basically spent the spring working on additional experiments for my main project that I thought were necessary after presenting at ACNP and getting feedback (i.e. extra controls, increasing n, diff stats, etc...). This was a good thing because I also used some of that data for my F32 resubmission, which was due in April. As I wrote that sentence I remembered that this time was particularly busy for me in the lab as the cohort of animals for my other project (MAM-CMS) was born and I was running 2 behaviors + recording all of these animals (8 group total). It was so crazy busy (yet productive) that I swore to myself never to schedule that many experiments for the same couple of months ever again. 

Summer 2016

I presented a new and improved version of my main project poster at the Society for Biological Psychiatry in Atlanta. This was very cool because I had never been there (omg the aquarium!) and I got to reconnect with a lot of people I had met during my PhD but had not seen since the start of my PD. Apparently they really like this meeting and it is one of their go-tos. One of these people was my PhD advisor, whom I worked with on trying to wrap up and expedite my remaining PhD papers. Another person was another female minority graduate student that I knew during my PhD at NYU. It was great catching up with her and hearing about all the great science she will be doing in her PD lab and how the transition was for her. I remembered thinking that there are many paths that can lead to the same outcome, and feeling at peace. 2 interpersonal crises later, I received the score for my F32 resubmission and it was so good I A) almost fell off my chair and B) started crying (like, really). If you’re anything like me, you probably already know that you cannot have it all. It always feels like either I’m great in my personal life and so so at work or I’m killing it at work and everything else has gone to shit. To me, the score meant funding was pretty much a given, so it tipped the scales back to the killing it at work scenario and I settled for being happy with that and harnessing what was left of my happiness into that new positive direction. You can read about my F32 project here. I spent the rest of the summer celebrating my birthday, good fortune and prepping my first PD paper for submission. Also, I GOT A CAR! For the first time in nearly 7 years since I did my PhD in Manhattan and lol cars in NYC. 

Fall 2016

Remember that slump I mentioned I was in at the beginning of the summer? I decided to get over it by taking a solo trip to Thailand :] That is a post in itself (which will likely not end up here) but it was truly a once in a lifetime trip. I liked that it was hard (+16 hours to get there), new (first time ever in Asia) and was something totally out of my comfort zone. I met people from all over the US, rode elephants, visited UNESCO world heritage sites, learned about Buddhism, bar-hopped in Khao San Road and the red light district, shipped in a professional masseuse from the temples for a full body massage, ate weird food, etc. etc. Some of these pics can be found my scrolling down in my IG.  I feel like everyone should do something like that for themselves, at least every once in a while. I also learned that culture shock is funny because it can happen once you get back from your trip. I had a soft meltdown upon arriving at JFK and spent my first night back talking to a friend/processing everything I had witnessed. Can’t wait to go back and this time make it to Krabi or Phuket! 

During this semester, I also submitted my initial paper for my main project and added experiments to my secondary project. In more exciting news, I published a first author PhD paper on the effects of early life stress on social behavior and neural activity in cortical and limbic areas. You can read it here. I also got a travel award to present this work at the Society for Social Neuroscience in San Diego jus prior to SfN 2016, where I presented my first SfN poster as a PD. I was overwhelmed by the positive response and I got to do a podcast w/ Deb Budding from Neurocurious. Even though I was dead tired and delirious from my poster session being immediately before, it was SO MUCH FUN <3 I just checked and its still not up but will link it here when its available! SfN 2016 was followed by ACNP 2016 (first time presenting my MAM/CMS data, now DEFINITELY my favorite meeting), although I flew down to Florida early so I could make it to Art Basel (basically a conference, but for art!). I had such a great time that I almost forgot that my paper was rejected :( When I got back to Pitt, I focused on collecting data for the last experiments in yet another (small) project (that I have not mentioned previously yet). Then I went off to Puerto Rico to spend NYE w/ my family and friends :D

Winter 2016-2017 (aka where am I now)

I published another PhD paper. This one is a co-first paper and I’m really proud of it because it represents an effort by our group to incorporate techniques used in humans to facilitate translation of findings between animal models and humans. 

I revised and resubmitted my previously rejected paper. System says it’s still under review so we’ll see what happens... 

I submitted a grant based on an idea I had last fall that ties in nicely with my current work (pitched the idea to advisor at SfN 2016, luckily he agrees it is interesting/worth the shot).

Collected prelim data for above-mentioned grant.

Organizing the outline for a review I want to write that’s related to my grant. A colleague/mentor gave me the idea to do this since it’s a good chance to get a publication of all that lit search you did anyway! 

Put in 2 travel award applications (1 no, 1 still waiting) to present my work 

Nearly done collecting data for that random project 3 that slipped my mind for most of this post. I think this is because it’s not my main project and its a follow-up of someone else’s project. Presented this data at lab meeting and got some feedback about graphing/analyzing data. Working on this and aiming to submit by early summer. 

Traveling to Boston in 2 weeks to present in the Poverty and the Brain symposium at the Eastern Psychological Association meeting

Accepted a position as an ad hoc member of ACNP’s minority task force in order to help increase the participation of underrepresented minorities (URMs) in the college and to help retain them

Accepted a position as Review Editor in the Editorial Board of Frontiers in Behavioral Neuroscience 

WHEW. I finally got it all out. There you have it, what I’ve been up to since starting my postdoc and why I haven’t been more active on Twitter/here. Hopefully it goes someways in attenuating my I-should-be-posting-more-guilt :P 

Also, please feel free to write if you have any questions about PD life, the grad to PD transition or anything else you have read about here : ) In case you didn’t know, I started this blog as a grad student who DID NOT think they were going to make it in academia so the fact that this blog is still alive and so many of you still follow it/engage motivates me to keep it going for as long as I can. Maybe one day I’ll have a job and can look back at everything that led to that there. That’s the dream. Until next time! 

xoxo

Dr. M

[houseofmind]

How many grad schools did you apply to and did you feel confident about getting into grad school?

About 9-10. Interviewed at 2, accepted into 1. Nope, not at all. I actually had to be convinced to apply to NYU by the dean (we met at an undergraduate research conference).

[houseofmind]

Love your blog!! I'm about to start college in a couple months and am interested in a research career In neuroscience. Which undergraduate classes are best to take?

Thanks :]

I would say that depends on the kind of research you think you might want to pursue! I, for example, was a straight bio major that minored in psych whose main interest was behavioral neuroscience. I’ve met people that majored in other things (computer science, engineering, chemistry and even philosophy!). Another thing is that you will likely take many core courses in neuro if you end up going to grad school, which means that you’ll have an easier time if you are already familiar with the subject, but college also gives you a chance to take some other fun courses you wouldn’t be able to take in grad school.

Here is the neuroscience degree requirements at Pitt for reference: http://www.neuroscience.pitt.edu/programs/undergraduate/degree-requirements.php

As you can imagine, lots of bio, chemistry, math, and neuro. I would also recommend neuroanatomy and physics, as these will be critical to understanding what’s going on/where it’s going on.

Good luck!

[houseofmind]

Hi, my name is Millie and I'm an #actuallivingscientist studying how dopamine neurons in the brain respond to different types of stressors, and how these responses may differ between sexes.  Upper right: hand- pulled glass recording electrode  Lower right: Plate of brain area (VTA) where I find dopamine neurons to record from. #neuroscience #outreach #scicomm #femalescientist #womeninscience #academia #electrophysiology #researcher #STEM

[houseofmind]

Music, uniquely among the arts, is both completely abstract and profoundly emotional. It has no power to represent anything particular or external, but it has a unique power to express inner states or feelings. Music can pierce the heart directly; it needs no mediation.

Oliver Sacks, Musicophilia: Tales of Music and the Brain

[houseofmind]

On Interpersonal Space 

Space between people creates and defines the social dynamics of our interactions. For example, we can use space to signal threat, aggression or even intimacy. Furthermore, even slight individual differences (i.e. social anxiety, vigilant vs avoidant phenotypes, sensory sensitivity, culture, sex) can have effects on how we use interpersonal space. Briefly, there are 4 types of space that are categorized differently based on intimacy and proximity: intimate, personal, social, public. 

The diagram above was one that I saw Anat Perry- one of the speakers at today’s Society for Social Neuroscience (S4SN)- show in her talk. I was really fascinated by this because even as a neuroscientist who is interested in social behavior (see PhD papers), my bias was towards actual contact time or time spent in a social zone. I didn’t even know that proxemics was a thing! 

I am just becoming familiar with her work, but let’s just say that has studied determinants of interpersonal distance in healthy controls, autism spectrum disorder patients and found a role for the orbitofrontal cortex in regulating interpersonal distance. For instance, Perry et. al 2016 found that only patients with OFC damage showed abnormal interpersonal distance preferences, which were significantly different from both controls and patients with dorsolateral prefrontal damage. The comfortable distances these patients chose with strangers were significantly closer than the other groups and resembled distances normally used with close others. 

[houseofmind]

Disrupted social behavior is a core symptom of multiple psychiatric and neurodevelopmental disorders. Many of these disorders are exacerbated by adverse infant experiences, including maltreatment and abuse, which negatively affect amygdala development. Although a link between impaired social behavior, abnormal amygdala function and depressive-like behavior following early adversity has been demonstrated in humans and animal models, the developmental emergence of maltreatment-related social deficits and associated amygdala neural activity are unknown. We used a naturalistic rodent model of maternal maltreatment during a sensitive period, postnatal days 8–12 (PN8–12), which produces social behavior deficits that precede adolescent depressive-like behavior and amygdala dysfunction, to examine social behavior in infancy, periweaning and adolescence. Neural activity in response to the social behavior test was assessed via c-Fos immunohistochemistry at these ages. A separate group of animals was tested for adult depressive-like behavior in the forced swim test. Maltreatment spared infant (PN16–18) social behavior but disrupted periweaning (PN20–22) and adolescent (PN42–48) social behavior. Maltreated rats exhibited blunted neural activation in the amygdala and other areas implicated in social functioning, including the medial prefrontal cortex and nucleus accumbens, at these ages and increased adult depressive-like behavior. These findings may suggest corticolimbic involvement in the emergence of maltreatment-induced social deficits that are linked to adult depressive-like behavior, thereby highlighting potential targets for therapeutic intervention. Understanding how infant experiences influence social behavior and age-specific expression across development may provide insights into basic neural mechanisms of social behaviors and disease-relevant social dysfunction exacerbated by early-life stress.

Hi guys! 

I’ve been so busy catching up with work after my on-a-whim vacation, updating that update post and prepping for #SfN16 that I forgot to let you guys know that I published another one of my 1st author PhD papers. It is open access so you should not have any trouble getting to my paper by clicking on the link but feel free to message me if you want a PDF/have questions! 

Also, I will be presenting this work on Friday Nov. 11 at the Society for Social Neuroscience meeting :) 

[houseofmind]

A researcher I admire posted this on Facebook. This was published in 1936 and seems more important now than ever. 

[houseofmind]

On managing academic stress

(image above is click-through link to related UC Berkeley article)

Most of us have probably heard at some point in our lives that stress is not entirely a bad thing. Acute stress, such as having an upcoming deadline or being about to take a test, can boost your motivation  to rise to the challenge and “get it done”. However, chronic stress (often times characteristic of “the grad school experience”) can have adverse (and enduring) effects if not managed properly. As someone who has an (undiagnosed) impulse control disorder that is exacerbated stress and who was diagnosed with IBS during my third year of grad school, I know this all too well. It wasn’t until I started having IRL conversations with other academics that I realized that academic stress is both real and commonplace. 

Apparently, I wasn’t the only one with IBS, waking up in the middle of the night feeling like I was having a heart attack (if you haven’t experienced this, count yourself lucky), and reaching those times of feeling overwhelmed/burnt out. It also didn’t help that there’s this notion that stress just comes with academia (i.e. it is something to be expected and handled) and nobody really feels comfortable talking about openly. It’s almost as though to admit that you are feeling stressed out is equivalent to being weak. Before I proceed, allow me to try to convince you that this notion is antiquated and incorrect. Academia is stressful for pretty much everyone who is human and academic stress comes in many flavors throughout an academic career. Some examples include: first year stress (esp. if you did not major in neuroscience or psychology), stress of picking lab and becoming a new member, grant-writing stress, project trouble-shooting stress, oral presentation stress, comp/qualifying exam stress, lab drama stress, publishing stress, thesis-writing and defense stress, finding a job stress, tenure-track stress, out of funding stress and the list goes on. Furthermore, some would say that the “academic climate” now is more competitive and cut throat that it used to be (way back when in the 80s, 90s). So there. More stress. 

The first step is to identify stress for what it is and to determine your specific triggers so that you can better develop coping strategies. Also, try to be specific as to what aspect of the stressor throws you over the edge. Is it timing? Lack of controllability? Working with others? Not feeling the sense of mastery you want? Poor lifestyle? You get the picture. 

Below are a set of points that have been helpful to me. This list is by no means all-inclusive, so feel free to customize it. This list is more about providing a starting point of ideas as to how to manage your stress (and preserve your sanity).

1. Take care of yourself: Eat, sleep, and be active. Also, cut down on your vices or substitute for less harmful ones. Sure, sounds easy enough. But not really. During my PhD, I worked outside the city and my workday was from 9:00AM (all aboard the NKI shuttle at 8AM though) until 6:00PM. This means that I started to get ready around 7AM and was back home around 7:30PM. Every day. For years. To make matters worse, I was going to bed at 1-2AM. BAD IDEA. Now I make it a priority to get at least 6 hours but usually aim for 7-9 (yes, 9!). If you are getting less than 6 hours in regularly, you are likely not sleeping enough. Also, I’m sure many of you are familiar (i.e. guilty of) being so busy you forget to eat. Don’t. Give yourself options: bring snacks to lab, have food delivery numbers handy in a pinch or even buy back-up tie over meals to keep in the break room (i.e. yogurts, a loaf of bread, cheese, cold cuts, frozen dinners, etc.). Also, try sneaking in a little exercise into your life by walking to work, picking up a training/workout class, getting into intramural sports (more likely if you work somewhere that has an undergrad campus), or even just dancing by yourself in the comfort of your own house. Basically, find something that helps you work up a sweat. If you’re at a school w/ an undergrad campus, chances are you have a wealth of activities available to you at little or no cost (i.e. access to pools, gym facilities, fitness classes, etc.). 

2. Plan, organize, and prioritize. These are all related to time management skills. Unfortunately, there is no grad school class on time management so most grad students have to adopt a trial and error approach. Others, like myself, had a gracious PhD mentor that taught them how to timeline/schedule experiments. (Side note: I did my PhD in a developmental behavioral neuroscience lab so scheduling was a must.) There is really something to be said for putting down what you need to do on paper. I know it’s stressful to see your to-do list (which usually seems never-ending) but it helps keep important stuff in mind and it feels really good to cross things off :) Let your to-do list motivate you, not paralyze you! Also, keep in mind the order of importance of things as you work on the list. Ex. I use iCal to schedule experiments, meeting, events, etc. My phone does this thing where it synchronizes Facebook events, Google calendar, and iCal so that when I look at a day, I see EVERYTHING that is happening each day and when/where. I also keep a Post-It note stuck on the right side of my laptop (I bring it to lab) with things that need to happen ASAP. On the wall above my desk I keep a handwritten list of things that need to be done in lab over the next couple of weeks (on a continuous basis or for a specific cohort of animals, etc). Developing time management skills is important because it’s easy to forget to do something you have not made time for! By this I mean that what doesn’t get scheduled, typically doesn’t get done :/ The responsibility is yours. Also, if you are stressing about a specific aspect of a project or getting a particular data-set, ask your PI what they think your priority should be (this may be something they need for a grant, talk, etc.). 

3. Create a social support network and maintain healthy social relationships. You know, people you can talk to (and let your guard down with).  These may be friends, family, significant other, colleagues, lab mates, conference buddies, neighbors, etc. It is often beneficial to have a mix of people (i.e. the have been there forever, the school/lab ones, outside academia). Swap stories with lab mates, peers, colleagues you trust instead of bottling up everything. I think it gives a sense of solidarity since a lot of the stress lab/academic situations are commonplace. Keep in mind that school/work struggles are not exclusive to academia and you can often gain meaningful insights and a different perspective from people outside academia. One last thing on this: don’t neglect your own role when the time to buffer someone else comes! You can’t take all the support but not give any. 

4. Learn how to say no (know your limits). One of the easiest ways to bring in paramount stress levels into your life during grad school/postdoc is to say yes to more than you can handle. In academia ideas and projects are constantly being formed/pursued and it is not unnatural for students/postdocs to have more than one project. This is ok but avoid spreading yourself too thin. I, like many, have been guilty of this. Some things I’ve gotten done and some I’m still trying to push out. Oh well. If you’re feeling stressed out, (see #2 and note below). 

Reminder: PIs know that you’re working on project X. But they usually don’t factor in all the little details that go into making project X happen, such as breeding, habituation, surgeries, post-op rec periods, time in b/w tests, etc. It is your job to remind them! 

Note: Doing #2 will help you tell your PI exactly how your time in the lab is spent. It’s WAY easier to postpone starting something or reduce your role if you have PROOF that you have no time for it. If it’s really important, compromises will be made (hurray!). 

5. Make time for hobbies. Even better, cultivate new ones. Working really hard does not mean that all you do is work. Try to become really good at something other than science :) Find a variety of interesting, fun and/or enjoyable things to do outside of lab. It helps to have hobbies of varying intensities (some active, some passive) so that you have options if you come back too tired or what not. Have more low-key ones (ex. cooking*, singing, drawing/painting, knitting, becoming an expert at ______, delve into a decade, explore a music genre, start a collection) and active (i.e. martial arts, yoga, train for a marathon, pick up a new dance, teach your body how to do something new or just walk around). 

*Learning how to cook gives you a head up on #1. 

6. Find your ground. This one is really open-ended as it means different things to different people, but it’s important because it helps you keep connected to yourself. It may include (but is not limited to): talking to your relatives (especially the older ones) regularly, keeping in touch with your cultural roots through organizations/clubs/meetups, volunteering, going to church, meditating, developing your spiritual life, introspection, etc. 

7. Stay positive. Avoid falling down the black hole of discouragement and despair. Way easier to get sucked in than it is to claw out. If you let yourself go you will need to be aggressive about obtaining new outlook. And possibly outside help. Remember that misery loves company and protect your positivity. Being positive despite adversity is a choice. You have the power to decide. More on the value of thinking happy thoughts here.

8. Give yourself a reality check. From an intellectual standpoint, there is some sort of a re-wiring that happens when you’ve been in academia for a while. It’s hard to describe because it constitutes different things by career stage and by people. In my experience, this transformation happened towards the end of grad school. It’s around this time that people often ask themselves: WHY AM I DOING THIS? WHAT IS THIS FOR? WHAT DOES IT ALL MEAN?  For me, the result of pondering these things resulted in a personal epiphany that all of this (i.e. science, academia, my thesis) was bigger than myself and only a limited part of the world. It does not define who I am as a person, and it will be pretty much irrelevant if the world goes to shit a la Walking Dead or Revolution. Heck, there’s people in the world right now worrying about whether or not they will live to see tomorrow. It was a weird mix of  learning how to stop sweating the small stuff and focusing on moving towards the big picture, feeling privileged to be able to pursue doing research, while also understanding that there are things beyond your control and that sometimes you can only control the way you handle a situation and what you do to remedy it. 

9. Go on vacation. This one’s self-explanatory. Try to avoid the compulsion to check your work e-mail :) If you opt for a stay-cation, make it a point to disconnect. 

[houseofmind]

Behavioral deficits induced by myelin disruption

Myelin is required for proper nerve conduction and has an important role in normal axonal function. Indeed, myelin alterations are observed in various neurological diseases. Furthermore, although polymorphism in myelin genes is associated with conditions including depression, schizophrenia, and bipolar disorder, little is known about the neuronal and behavioral consequences of myelin disruption alone and the role of myelin genes in pathology. To address the contribution of myelin function to behavioral and cognitive deficits, Gould et. al used a mouse line lacking the myelin proteolipid protein (PLP), as these mice generate myelin but exhibit progressive myelin dysfunction and eventual axonal degeneration. 

The group tested 3 and 8 month-old PLP knockout PLP(-/Y) male mice in a battery of behavioral tests. 

Rotarod: No motor deficits were observed in 3 and 8 month old PLP(-/Y) mice on the Rotarod, a classical test of motor function. 

Zero maze: Altered emotionality was observed in 3 and 8 month PLP(-/Y) mice. 3 month PLP(-/Y) mice spent more time in open arms of the zero maze (apparently increasing in popularity as a test of anxiety?) while no change was observed at 8 months. 8 month PLP(-/Y) mice spent less time in the center of an open field, while exploration of the walls was increased. PLP(-/Y) mice demonstrated a decrease in the motivation to bury marbles in the marble burying task. 

Y maze: Performance on the Y maze, a test of spatial memory and hippocampal function, was normal in 3 and 8 month old PLP(-/Y) mice. 

Puzzle Box: In the Puzzle Box, a test of problem-solving and executive function, 3 and 8 month PLP(-/Y) mice displayed longer latency to reach the goal box when presented with a new challenge, indicating deficits in higher cognition. 

Taken together, these findings suggest that myelin dysfunction results in targeted behavioral deficits and cognitive dysfunction even long before significant axonal degeneration can be observed. Furthermore, these data raise the possibility that there could be a myelin-specific dimension to certain neurological disorders, which may warrant specific therapeutic interventions. 

Source: 

E. A. GOULD, N. BUSQUET, D. RESTREPO, W. MACKLIN. Myelin disruption leads to targeted behavioral deficits. Program No. 224.29/G31. Neuroscience Meeting Planner. Chicago, IL: Society for Neuroscience, 2015. Online.

[houseofmind]

Sexually dimorphic hypothalamic circuit for maternal behavior and oxytocin secretion

Parental care is a complex stereotypic behaviour toward offspring that is shared by numerous species. In mice, there are striking sex differences in offspring directed behavior. For example, nulliparous females (i.e. not having given birth) behave maternally toward alien pups while males will usually ignore the pups or attack them. Interestingly, Tali Kimchi’s group shows that tyrosine hydroxylase (TH)-expressing neurons in the anteroventral periventricular nucleus (AVPV) of the mouse hypothalamus are more numerous in mothers than in virgin females and males, and govern parental behaviours in a sex-specific manner. In females, ablating the AVPV TH+ neurons impaired maternal behaviour whereas optogenetic stimulation or increased TH expression in these cells enhance maternal care. In males, however, this same neuronal cluster has no effect on parental care but rather suppresses adult-directed aggression. Optogenetic activation or increased TH expression in the AVPV TH+ neurons of female mice increases circulating oxytocin, whereas their ablation reduces oxytocin levels. Using neuroanatomical tracing and optogenetic stimulation, we found that AVPV TH+ cells relay a monosynaptic input to oxytocin-expressing neurons in the paraventricular nucleus, suggesting an important role for this neuronal cluster in the control of maternal care and oxytocin secretion, and providing a causal relationship between sexual dimorphism in the adult brain and sex differences in parental behavior.

Note: This work was presented as poster but has already been published in Nature. 

Source:

Scott et. al (2015). A sexually dimorphic hypothalamic circuit controls maternal care and oxytocin secretion. Nature 525(7570): 519-22. 

[houseofmind]

A novel rat model of PTSD

Reactions to trauma are extremely diverse. Some people exposed to trauma develop PTSD, but others don’t. In addition, symptoms vary between PTSD individuals. Furthermore, working with group averages masks individual differences. Gal Richter Levin is interested in individual differences in a a novel animal model of PTSD which consists of a near drowning experiences (Sood et. al 2014). His group focused on two things:

1. Measure differences in stress response (i.e. anxiety, anhedonia) after trauma exposure.

2. Look for associated neural networks.

Animals were exposed to the zero maze (a variety of the elevated plus maze), which has a container with water (water chamber) in the center. Animals are exposed to underwater trauma (done by lowering the animal into the water for 45s in a metal cage) following 4 days of zero maze exposure. 

1 month after trauma the group observed a distribution in behavioral responses in measures of anxiety-like behaviors and neural correlates (assessed via immunohistochemistry). According to Dr. Richter-Levin, the differential neural activity patterns found among different response styles validates the functionality of behavioral profiling and reveals that pure anxious phenotype exhibits desynchronization between dorsal and ventral hippocampus and strong synchronization between ventral hippocampus and amygdala. In co-morbid anhedonic phenotype a separation between hyper excited amygdala and the rest of the areas within the corticolimbic network along with a desynchronization with the PFC. 

Note: This work is published in Molecular Psychiatry and will be readily available soon. 

[houseofmind]

The latest Tweets from Dr. M (@houseofmind). @NYULMC PhD turned postdoc at UPitt. All about that DA and depression. SJU-JFK-PIT. Pittsburgh

Click on this link if you want to catch up on what I’ve been tweeting about at this year’s Society for Neuroscience meeting. 

[houseofmind]

Got this sweet shirt at the APS booth :D

[houseofmind]

Highlights from the academic social networking panel

Lead with your science, not your appearance!

Use social media to your advantage and to reach out to people you normally would not meet

If you want to meet someone you don’t know, find someone you know to introduce you in an informal setting :)

Build an international network. You may think you don’t need it, but a trainee might! 

Take advantage of casual interactions (i.e. lunches, social, shuttle-riding) at conferences

Follow-up with people you meet (send a quick reminder of yourself)

It’s never to early to establish interactions with your program officer (these people are super important for your career!)

Listen more than you talk

Become the person that comes to mind

Reach out to older and younger generations

It’s not about who you know, but rather who knows you! 

People may forget what you said, but they do not forget how you made them feel

If someone seems like they’re not that into you, back off! Do not force social interactions

Be honest, be yourself. 

Note: Speakers included Natalie Tronson, Rebecca Shansky, Benjamin Saunders, Bita Moghaddam, Yasmin Hurd, Mark Baxter and Bruce McEwen. Writing this in retrospect so pardon my lack of attributing tips to each individual.