As science becomes more global and collaborative, understanding power dynamics and how they shape professional interactions is key for promoting healthy and productive learning spaces and workplaces. In this Short Course from Neuroscience 2018, panelists give short lectures and lead case study discussions on power dynamics in science and academia. You’ll come away with a better understanding of the nature of power dynamics and how intersectionality affects the way relative differences in power are experienced by different people. You’ll also learn how to develop skills to manage power dynamics at work and in the classroom. This Short Course was organized by Story Landis, Elisabeth Van Bockstaele, Marguerite Matthews, Keith Trujillo, and Cheryl Sisk.

Behavioral and neuroscientific studies have shown that watching a speaker's lip movements aids speech comprehension. Intriguingly, even when videos of speakers are presented silently, various cortical regions track auditory features, such as the envelope. Recently, we demonstrated that eye movements track low-level acoustic information when attentively listening to speech. In this study we investigated whether ocular speech tracking occurs during visual speech and how it influences cortical silent speech tracking. Furthermore, we compared the data of hearing individuals with congenitally deaf individuals, and those with acquired deafness or hearing loss (DHH; Deaf or hard of hearing) to assess how audiovisual listening experience and auditory deprivation (early vs. late onset) affects neural and ocular speech tracking during silent lip-reading. Using magnetoencephalography (MEG), we examined ocular and neural speech tracking of 75 participants observing silent videos of a speaker played forward and backwar...

Chronic pain affects millions globally, yet no universally effective treatment exists. The primary motor cortex (M1) has been a key target for chronic pain therapies, with electrical stimulation of the M1 (eMCS) showing promise. However, the mechanisms underlying M1-mediated analgesic effects are not fully understood. We investigated the role of the primary somatosensory cortex (S1) in M1-mediated analgesia using a neuropathic pain mouse model. In this model, neuropathic pain is associated with increased spontaneous activity of layer V pyramidal neurons (LV-PNs) in the S1, partly attributed to the reduced activity of somatostatin-expressing inhibitory neurons (SST+ INs), which normally suppress LV-PNs. While manipulation of either LV-PNs or SST+ INs has been shown to alleviate pain, the role of S1 in M1-mediated analgesia has not been identified. Using multichannel silicon probes, we applied eMCS to neuropathic mice and observed significant analgesia. Histological analyses revealed that eMCS activated SST+...

To help you decide what’s next after you’ve completed your postdoc, SfN has created a toolkit guiding you through career options available to you. Learn about various opportunities within and outside of academia and how to evaluate each based on your skills, interests, and values. Explore the toolkit’s ready-to-use presentation to learn: - Questions to consider as you prepare to take the next step in your career. - Differences among types of faculty positions. - What to share in an application and what to expect during the academic interview process. - Where to find out more about nonacademic careers. - Ways to build your network. - How to assess and develop relevant skills and highlight transferable ones on a resume or CV. Read this toolkit now and refer to it as you advance in your career. You can also share the toolkit with an audience at your institution or at your local SfN chapter meeting.

Each year, the International Brain Research Organization (IBRO) partners with the Society of Neuroscientists of Africa (SONA) to host summer neuroscience schools in Africa for graduate students and junior faculty from across the continent. Instructors from Africa and elsewhere collaborate to lead lectures, labs, and one-on-one student coaching. Peter Kalivas, neuroscience professor and chair at the Medical University of South Carolina (MUSC), has been an instructor twice and plans to continue in the years to come. Here, he shares his experience from July 2018 in Nairobi, Kenya and his hopes for the global scientific community. Can you give a snapshot of the goal and structure of the summer school? The broad goal of the IBRO-Africa summer schools is to promote neuroscience research and education in Africa. This year’s school in Nairobi, Kenya centered around addiction. Attendees were PhD students from across Sub-Saharan Africa, including Cameroon, Ethiopia, Kenya, Nigeria, South Africa, Tanzania, and Uganda, and faculty were from Kenya, Tanzania, South Africa, and the United States. Faculty from Africa and North America partnered to lead the course, breaking up lectures by topic area. So, someone from North America gave a talk about addiction through the lens of epidemiology. Then, a faculty member from Africa gave a talk focused on addiction issues specific for Africa. From there, all the instructors go into the neurobiology of addiction.

In this webinar, you will come away with an understanding of the challenges and opportunities of a having a career as a scientific manager in an academic institute or department, research foundation, nonprofit, or company. You will also be able to identify ways to gain experience and knowledge to prepare for this career niche.

Bill Griesar and Jeff Leake, cofounders of the neuroscience outreach nonprofit NW Noggin, in Portland, Oregon and Vancouver, Canada, share examples of how their undergraduate and graduate student volunteers use art to connect with youth in their community. Through art, which encourages self-expression and problem solving in different ways, NW Noggin helps kids see how neuroscience relates to their lives — and shows them how they can pursue a career in neuroscience.

When something at school or work doesn’t unfold as you hoped it would, it can be challenging to let go and move on. Use this advice from six neuroscientists to help you process situations, move forward, and ultimately build your resilience.

Interstitial cells of Cajal (ICC) regulate smooth muscle excitability and motility in the gastrointestinal (GI) tract. ICC express the Ca2+ activated Cl- channel Ano1 and depolarizing current resulting from its activation can be transduced to electrically coupled smooth muscle cells (SMCs) due to the presence of gap junctions. Thus, responses of ICC can affect SMC contractility and mediate complex motility patterns. While the role of certain classes of ICC as intestinal pacemakers is well established, other possible roles ascribed to ICC are controversial. There is currently debate in the literature regarding whether certain classes of ICC are innervated by enteric motor neurons and act as neuromodulators, receiving direct enteric neural input and transducing this neural signal to electrically coupled SMCs.

Eight neuroscientists offer their perspective on gaining experience, handling stress, asking for what they need, and more. What would you tell your former self? “Get involved in more than one lab. Although it's possible to get many lab skills and experiences in one lab, it’d be better to get experience in different areas to figure out what you’re interested in.” –Zack Sluzala, Baldwin Wallace University