The moment is promising for women in neuroscience and related fields, in which women have been — and are — underrepresented. Studies have shown that women are conditioned to believe they are better suited for the arts than for science. Studies also suggest, however, that having female scientist role models increases women's ability to see themselves in male-dominated spaces. This series highlights the scientific accomplishments and careers of female leaders working across disciplines. It provides role models to female scientists working or considering careers in neuroscience, engineering, and technology, the boundaries of which are dissolving to define new, intermediary fields like neural engineering, becoming more like sketches than bold lines.

Material below summarizes the article The Reuniens Nucleus of the Thalamus Has an Essential Role in Coordinating Slow-Wave Activity Between Neocortex and Hippocampus, published on September 23, 2019, in eNeuro and authored by Brandon E. Hauer, Silvia Pagliardini, and Clayton T. Dickson. Highlights Activity in the nucleus reuniens (RE) is related to slow sleep-related oscillations in two key episodic memory areas that it connects, the prefrontal cortex (PFC) and hippocampus (HPC). Selectively inhibiting the RE robustly impairs slow-wave coordination between PFC and HPC. Because slow-wave synchrony during sleep facilitates episodic memory, the RE is likely a key node in a PFC-HPC circuit promoting memory consolidation. Brandon Hauer

Exciting scientific opportunities are available practically anywhere in the world, but many PhD students consider the United States or countries in Europe as primary destinations for a postdoc. Deciding between the two can be a challenge, as they have similar demands on research quality, quantity, and impact. As with any work environment, however, science is highly influenced by local culture. If you’re deciding between Europe and the United States, focus your efforts on learning about the culture of the places you’re considering. In this article, we’ll share cultural themes that arose among our personal experiences moving from Europe to the United States. Our intent is to empower you to make a more informed choice about where to take this next step in your career.

Having mentors with backgrounds different than your own can bring you valuable perspective. A shared passion for science can be a great connector across disparate life experiences.

Two often forgotten but important parts of project management are relationship management and communication. This article will cover how to effectively manage relationships among collaborators and communicate the progress and results of the project to other scientists and the public.

Material below summarizes the article Movement Improves the Quality of Temporal Perception and Decision-Making, published on August 8, 2019, in eNeuro and authored by Martin Wiener, Weiwei Zhou, Farah Bader, and Wilsaan M. Joiner. Highlights Physical movements during encoding of auditory stimuli improve the final determination of time duration. Time perception is an integral component of motor planning and adaptation. Timing is directly computed in the motor system.

This resource was featured in the NeuroJobs Career Center. Visit today to search the world’s largest source of neuroscience opportunities. The research we do defines who we are as scientists. We’re proud of our work, so we publish in peer-reviewed journals and present at professional conferences. Some of us may have an opportunity to promote our work to the media, or to interview for a job we’ve always wanted. We hope we’re making a difference in people’s lives. But many researchers don’t communicate in a way that resonates with their intended audience — whether that’s their professional community, scientists in other fields, the public, the media, or a potential boss. It’s not just what you say, but also how you say it, that matters.

Virtual reality (VR) has gained popularity in recent years, integrating with conventional music stimulation, action observation (AO), and motor imagination (MI). It offers promising opportunities for developing innovative rehabilitation treatments, though the mechanisms underlying these effects remain unclear. This study aims to compare brain activation and network mechanisms following the fusion of MS, AO, and MI with VR. 50 healthy participants were recruited and underwent functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS) synchronization with three virtual reality tasks: music stimulation (VRMS), action observation (VRAO), and motor imagery (VRMI). The results indicate that VRMS significantly enhances functional connectivity of the bilateral primary sensory cortex (S1), pre-motor cortex and supplementary motor area (PM&SMA) compared to VRAO and VRMI. Furthermore, the interaction among the bilateral PM&SMA, right dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC), and right primary motor cortex (M1) regions is notably st...

In the mammalian visual system, three functionally distinct parallel processing streams extend from retina to visual thalamus and then to visual cortex: magnocellular, parvocellular, and koniocellular. Tree shrews ( Tupaia belangeri ), a pre-primate species, provide an advantageous model to study the koniocellular pathway in isolation because, while magnocellular and parvocellular pathways remain mixed in Lamina 1(L1), L2, L4, and L5 of the lateral geniculate nucleus (LGN), L3 and L6 receive strictly koniocellular input from the contralateral eye. Additionally, koniocellular-input laminae selectively receive glutamatergic axons from the superior colliculus (SC). To reveal how cellular and synaptic properties of koniocellular geniculate laminae may differ from magnocellular/parvocellular laminae, and how SC input may shape the koniocellular relay to cortex, we studied the morphology and connectivity of retinal and tectal terminals in pathway-specific laminae. While confirming that K-laminae relay cells cont...

A lab environment where individual members feel heard can help you to run a successful lab in diverse settings. An important part of creating this kind of inclusive environment is in fact what happens outside the day-to-day work of the lab — asking lab members about their research interests, for example, or encouraging reflection. At the 2019 Meet-the-Experts session “Twenty Years of Fear Research and Mentoring in Puerto Rico,” Gregory Quirk, PI of the Laboratory of Fear Learning at the University of Puerto Rico, shared that Puerto Rico has been building its presence in science, and that hard work has been bringing results for science across the island—in part due to attention to the lab environment.