Held every spring at one of OMV-SfN’s participating institutions, Neuroscience Day is the chapter’s showcase scientific meeting. The program includes a keynote presentation by a leading neuroscientist, student and post-doc presentations, and a poster competition and reception. Neuroscience Day is free of charge for current chapter members, so join or renew your membership now!
2012
Leslie Tolbert, Ph.D. (left), of the University of Arizona will be the keynote speaker at OMV-SfN’s 2012 Neuroscience Day on Friday, May 18, at Miami University. Dr. Tolbert is Regents Professor and Professor of Neuroscience and Cell Biology & Anatomy at Arizona, where she also is vice president for research, graduate studies, and economic development.
Dr. Tolbert writes: “Research in my laboratory focuses on the development and functional organization of the olfactory system, studied in convenient model organisms, the moth Manduca sexta and, very recently, the fruitfly Drosophila melanogaster. Several different lines of investigation have led us to focus much of our attention on roles for glial cells in development and in mature function.” Read more.
2011
Mary Dallman, Ph.D. (right), professor of neuroscience at the University of California-San Francisco,was the keynote speaker at OMV-SfN’s 2011 Neuroscience Day on Friday, May 20, at Wright State University. Dr. Dallman’s research studies the effects of chronic stress on brain-pituitary-adrenal interrelationships.
“Chronic stress has a variety of effects on the organism, including changes in energy balance, behavior and responsivity to new stimuli,” she says. “These effects of chronic stress are probably mediated in large part by the central corticotropin-releasing factor (CRF) neuronal system and glucocorticoids secreted from the adrenal gland in response to drive from hypothalamic CRF. Moreover, all of these are affected strongly by circadian rhythms.” Read more.
2010
Rajita Sinha, Ph.D. (left), was the keynote speaker at OMV-SfN’s 2010 Neuroscience Day on Monday, May 10, at the University of Cincinnati. Dr. Sinha is professor of psychiatry and director of the Yale Stress Center at Yale University. Her research interests include “clinical neurobiology of stress and relaxation, emotion dysregulation, and their effects on desire and drug craving and addictive behaviors, such as, drinking, eating and drug use.” Read more.
2009
OMV-SfN’s 2009 Neuroscience Day was held at Miami University on Friday, June 5. Carol A. Barnes, Ph.D., Regents’ Professor of Psychology and Neurology at the University of Arizona, was the keynote speaker. The topic of her lecture was “Cognitive Changes in Aging: Neural Correlates in Rats and Monkeys.”
The central goal of Dr. Barnes’ research and teaching program is the question of how the brain changes during the aging process and the functional consequences of these changes on information processing and memory in the elderly. The main research program involves studies of behavior and neurophysiology in young and old laboratory animals. This work provides a basis for understanding the basic mechanisms of normal aging in the brain and sets a background against which it is possible to assess the effects of pathological changes such as Alzheimer’s disease. Some of her current work also includes an assessment of therapeutic agents that may be promising in the alleviation or delay of neural and cognitive changes that occur with age. She teaches afull semester course in the biological, psychological, and sociological aspects of aging with joint appointments in the Department of Neurology and the Neuroscience Program.
See the 2009 Neuroscience Day program (PDF).
2008
OMV-SfN’s 2008 Neuroscience Day was held at Wright State University on Friday, May 16. Barry Connors Ph.D., professor and chair of neuroscience at Brown University, was the keynote speaker. The title of his talk was “Eclectic Electric Synapses in the Brain.”
Dr. Connors says of his research, “I study the largest part of the brain, the neocortex, which thinks, remembers and processes sensory information for us. The neocortex is made up of a vast network of interconnected neurons. The challenge is to understand why there are so many neurons, what’s the function of each, how they’re interconnected, and why they’re interconnected in the way they are. In the lab, we search for this information by measuring electrical impulses from the neurons of rodent brains, which are striking in their similarity to ours. I’m very interested in the possibility that our research may have relevance to human problems, including epilepsy and psychiatric diseases such as depression and schizophrenia. What drives me is a desire to understand how the brain works – and in some cases why it doesn’t work.”
See the 2008 Neuroscience Day program (MS Word).
2007
OMV-SfN’s 2007 Neuroscience Day was held Monday, April 30, at the Vontz Center and adjacent Kingsgate Marriot Conference Center at the University of Cincinnati. Tomas Hökfelt, M.D., Ph.D., professor of neuroscience at the Karolinska Institute in Sweden, delivered the 2007 Grass Lecture, “Three Decades with Three Swedish Neuropeptides: Focus on Pain and Depression.” Professor Hökfelt is an internationally renowned neuroscientist and among the most highly cited scientists in the world. He pioneered the fields of both catecholamine and neuropeptide research in the nervous system. During the past few years, his work has focused on two “Swedish” neuropeptides, galanin and NPY, and their role in pain and depression and relevance for possible therapeutic strategies.
See the 2007 Neuroscience Day program (PDF).
2006
OMV-SfN’s 2006 Neuroscience Day was held at Miami University Monday, May 8. Neuroscience Day featured a Grass Lecture by Chiara Cirelli, M.D., Ph.D., associate professor of psychiatry at the University of Wisconsin. The topic of her lecture was “A Molecular Window on Sleep.”
2005
OMV-SfN’s 2005 Neuroscience Day was held Tuesday, May 10, at Wright State University in Dayton. Neuroscience Day featured OMV-SfN’s second consecutive Grass Lecture presented by Pat R. Levitt, Ph.D., then a professor and director of the Kennedy Center for Research on Human Development at Vanderbilt University in Nashville. The topic of his lecture is “Cortical Interneurons and Neurodevelopmental Disorders.”
See the 2005 Neuroscience Day program (MS Word).
2004
OMV-SfN’s first Neuroscience Day was held Tuesday, May 25, at the University of Cincinnati’s Genome Research Institute (GRI). The chapter received a Grass Lectureship from the Society for Neuroscience to bring Bruce S. McEwen, Ph.D., to Cincinnati for the event. He is Alfred E. Mirsky Professor at The Rockefeller University in New York. The title of his Grass Lecture is “Gonadal Hormone Effects on the Brain: It Ain’t Just Sex Anymore.”
See the 2004 Neuroscience Day poster list (MS Word).
