Human and mouse dorsal root ganglia (hDRG and mDRG) neurons are important tools in understanding the molecular and electrophysiological mechanisms that underlie nociception and drive pain behaviors. One of the simplest differences in firing phenotypes is that neurons are single-firing (exhibit only one action potential) or multi-firing (exhibit 2 or more action potentials). To determine if single- and multi-firing hDRG neurons exhibit differences in intrinsic properties, firing phenotypes, and AP waveform properties, and if these properties could be used to predict multi-firing, we measured 22 electrophysiological properties by whole-cell patch-clamp electrophysiology of 94 hDRG neurons from 6 male and 4 female donors. We then analyzed the data using several machine learning models to determine if these properties could be used to predict multi-firing. We used 1000 iterations of Monte Carlo Cross Validation to split the data into different train and test sets and tested the Logistic Regression, k-Nearest N...

Set yourself up for success in securing a senior academic position by knowing how to promote your work, seek out opportunities, interview, and negotiate. These tips will get you started.

Established scientists talk about their experiences with diversity in neuroscience and give you advice for pursuing a successful career.

Peter Uhlhaas from the University of Glasgow, UK, talks about neural synchrony in schizophrenia at the FENS-SfN Summer School on Neurodevelopmental Psychiatric Disorders, which took place June 22-28, 2014, in Bertinoro, Italy.

Oftentimes when imaging the brain, a wider view is sacrificed for finer detail, or vice versa. Although the ideal imaging technique could resolve both signals propagating within single neurons and signals sent across a whole network of hundreds of neurons, the two views present different challenges.

After you have established a mentoring team, it is important to maintain your mentoring relationships in a professional manner. Through your attitude and actions, you can show that you are responsible, and through your work as a graduate student, you can develop and demonstrate your abilities as an independent scholar and researcher.

High-quality science and high standards of animal care go hand in hand. In order to achieve good science, it’s essential that we have healthy animals. If our animals are sick, hungry, malnourished, housed poorly, or depressed, we’ll see the impact on our work.

There is experimental evidence of varying correlation among the elements of the neuromuscular system over the course of the reach-and-grasp task. Several neuromuscular disorders are accompanied by anomalies in muscular coupling during the task. The aim of this study was to investigate if modifications in correlations and clustering can be detected in the Local Field Potential (LFP) recordings of the motor cortex during the task. To this end, we analyzed the LFP recordings from a previously published study on monkeys which performed a reach-and-grasp task for targets with a vertical or horizontal orientation. LFP signals were recorded from the motor and premotor cortex of macaque monkeys as they performed the task. We found very robust changes in the correlations of the multielectrode LFP recordings which corresponded to task epochs. Mean LFP correlation increased significantly during reaching and then decreased during grasp. This pattern was very robust for both left and right arm reaches irrespective of t...

So, you want to study neuroscience in graduate school. Acknowledging that you are ready to further your education is the first big step. Now you must choose the few programs you want to apply to out of hundreds available.

As graduate students and postdoctoral fellows working in the lab, we are acutely aware that federal funding for basic science has decreased over the years. Is there anything we can do about it? As I found out as an SfN Early Career Policy Fellow participating in SfN’s Capitol Hill Day, there is.