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Hi all, I'm a male postdoc at UC Berkeley. I'd like to share a room with somebody during the conference (10/04/2024-10/09/2024). Please contact me at liangzou@berkeley.edu if you're interested.

I've always been interested in neuroscience, even in high school, but lacked mentorship. Consequently, I pursued Biological Science and Chemistry in college, adopting the sobriquet "Neurocrypt," meaning "the secret of neurons." I believed a profound, yet minuscule, human secret awaited discovery, and unlocking it would bring inner peace. This nickname represented my neuroscience aspirations, despite my college's lack of a neuroscience major. I was captivated by neuroscience-related topics in biology and chemistry. Graduating from college ignited a passion for exploring brain functions and the transmission of genetic traits. Perhaps the secret lies there. During my studies, I coined the term "Neurocryptogenomics," a concept I couldn't fully articulate but tentatively defined as "neurogenetic protection". A combination of the knowledge of neurogenetics and the technology used for protecting the neurons and the genes. After pausing my research for a few years, I recently stumbled upon the term I coined online. Surprisingly, it had evolved from my initial simple definition into a comprehensive article with citations from Ivy League universities on neurogenomics, cryptogenomics, and blockchain. This discovery is both gratifying and inspiring, fueling my determination to present a poster on the subject area and someday pursue this research further, potentially culminating in a PhD dissertation on the subject. Blockchain not just for bitcoin: It can secure and store genomes, too | YaleNews Gill Bejerano: How cryptogenomics advances both science and privacy | Stanford University School of Engineering

Dear All, I will be in Chicago between October 5 and 10, 2024. I booked a room with two beds on North River. I am looking for somebody to share to cut costs. I am a male master student now. Since I am sensitive to heat little, I would like to make the room little bit cooler. Don't hesitate to get in touch if you want to stay in hotel with half price! Thanks, Yoon

The Institutional Development Award (IDeA) is a congressionally mandated program that builds research capacity in states that historically have had low levels of NIH funding. It supports competitive basic, clinical, and translational research, faculty development, and infrastructure improvements. The program aims to strengthen an institution’s ability to support biomedical research, enhance the competitiveness of investigators in securing research funding, and enable clinical and translational research that addresses the needs of medically underserved communities. IDeA-eligible states include: Alaska, Arkansas, Delaware, Hawaii, Idaho, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maine, Mississippi, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Mexico, North Dakota, Oklahoma, Rhode Island, South Carolina, South Dakota, Vermont, West Virginia, Wyoming, and Puerto Rico The Wyoming Sensory Biology Center is a Phase II COBRE center: The Centers of Biomedical Research Excellence (COBRE) program supports the establishment and development of innovative biomedical research centers through awards for three sequential five-year phases. We have implemented a policy to actively recruit under-represented faculty in our faculty and trainee search, and the accumulative efforts in the past 7 years has significantly increased diversity in our institutions, with female and under-represented faculty constitute the majority of the new hires. Our mission is to mentor these new hires and help them achieve independence. We were also quiet successful in this regard. As a result, the demographics of active-funded researchers has significantly changed at relevant departments.

Hey All, I'm a PhD student at Stockholm Univeristy originally from Ireland and will be attending SfN from the 4th of October to the 9th. I've booked a double room with two queen beds in the Hampton Inn & Suites Downtown, 33 West Illinois Street, Chicago, IL 60654. I'm looking for somebody to share to cut costs. I'm easy-going, looking forward to meeting new people and hope not to spend too much time in the room overall. Let me know if your interested!

“I find that we humans have a lot of strong biases that are passed on to us culturally, or are with us biologically, that we have to overcome.” This is a line that stuck with me from Erich D. Jarvis’s talk on July 17, 2024. Erich D. Jarvis shares his experiences, the impact of cultural influences on scientific research, how ethnicity, culture, gender, and vocabulary influence the experiments scientists perform, and how people interpret findings differently based on their cultural background. He recounts his transition from being a dancer to a scientist and how his childhood experiences significantly shaped his early beliefs and scientific career. Jarvis's work focuses on vocal learning pathways, a trait found in only five groups of mammals and three groups of birds, including humans. He also highlights the challenges early scientists faced in finding vocabulary that is consistent across vertebrate brains due to similar learning pathways. Historically, it was believed that brains evolved outward, with older structures at the bottom and newer ones at the top, leading to the terminology of paleocortex and neocortex. It was concluded that the neocortex was the largest in humans and responsible for complex cognitive behavior and racial differences in cortical sizes were falsely reported. Jarvis worked with the Avian Brain Nomenclature Consortium to correct these inaccuracies and introduce a modern view of neuroanatomy, unifying nomenclature and ensuring it matches biological reality. He discusses the significance of the field homology hypothesis in understanding neuroanatomy across vertebrate species and cautions against cultural influences that may skew scientific interpretation. Recent genetic analyses have identified specific brain areas involved in vocal learning, such as the HVC in songbirds and the LMC in humans, illustrating convergent evolution. Jarvis advocates for the re-evaluation of certain terms, like mammillary bodies, which are inaccurately named, and the replacement of terms like "higher vertebrates" and "lower vertebrates," which imply a linear view of evolution. He provides examples of avian species like parrots, which have more advanced vocal learning circuits than chimpanzees, challenging these perspectives. Reflecting on cultural biases, Jarvis said, “I find that we humans have a lot of strong biases that are passed on to us culturally, or are with us biologically, that we have to overcome. I think a lot more scientific investigation needs to be done on what’s causing humans to behave in such a way so we can actually then have policies that overcome our behaviors of tribalism, if labeled broadly.” He adds, “What is an acceptable term today may become an unacceptable term later on in your scientific writing. So we have to make sure our definitions are clear and write in a way that we don’t intend to be insulting. And so we have to be careful, but we have to be careful of being over-careful; otherwise, we’ll write in ways that are distracting and not clear.” Jarvis advocates for increased diversity in scientific leadership. He recalls the early SfN meetings in the 1990s, where seeing a person of color like himself was rare, and how today, the diversity in such meetings is more representative of the human population. Jarvis also talked about how studying songbirds can provide insights into human speech mechanisms, with the potential for discovering treatments for speech deficits influenced by genetic and familial factors. As a medical student, my belief in the importance of understanding evolution and its potential to solve existing problems has been reaffirmed.

I have booked a room with two beds at the Hampton Inn Magnificent Mile from October 4 through October 9 and am looking for a female roommate. If you are interested in sharing the room with me, please email me at mspark@med.miami.edu. Thank you, Minseon

Found my roommate, thank you for attention!

I have a reservation in Embassy Suites Magnificent Mile Hotel for 2 nights (October 4th and 5th). I am looking for a male roommate to share the cost of the room. If interested, please contact me. The reservation can be extended if there is a need to. Thank you and have a wonderful day. My email is ya.asadi60@gmail.com My number is 8067582911

Those in indigenous communities struggle greatly with mental health as well as treatment for mental health. In her article, Neuroscience and Mental Health in the Amazon, Community Leader Valéria Muoio is currently working with indigenous tribes to understand how both environment and social influence their mental health. How can the neuroscience community work to serve these under deserved communities?

What resources have proven incredibly helpful in your research? Share those resources with the Community.

Have you come across any recent developments in neuroscience research that has caught your attention? Share a link with more information and give us your perspective.

Hi, I am looking for a female roommate during the conference (Oct 4-9), please contact me via email liao4@g.clemson.edu if you are interested in! Thank you, Zhen

My name is Justin Zheng. I am a research assistant at UCSF, and I am planning on attending SFN in person this year. I am looking for a roommate to share the room with from October 5th- October 9th. If you are interested and wanted to discuss further, please feel free to email me. My email is: Justin.zheng2@ucsf.edu

Mistake

The Postdoctorate Dilemma Hugo Sánchez Castillo shares his journey of finding a postdoctoral position after completing his doctoral studies at the National University of Mexico. He emphasizes that a postdoc is not just an opportunity for scientific growth, but also for building networks, learning about culture, and personal development. Demystifying MATLAB for Beginners In this on-demand webinar, Curtis Neveu will demystify MATLAB for new users and brush up on topics for those who are familiar with the program. Neuroscience and Mental Health in the Amazon Valéria Muoio, a neuroscientist and neurosurgeon at the University of São Paulo and Neuronline Community Leader, describes the important work being done in the Brazilian Amazon rainforest to implement initiatives to help care for and preserve the local inhabitants, as well as the rainforest itself. Meet the ECPAs: Thomas Xin Read the latest Q&A in the “Meet the Early Career Policy Ambassadors” collection. Intracranial Recordings of the Human Orbitofrontal Cortical Activity during Self-Referential Episodic and Valenced Self-Judgments Join this interactive session as Behzad Iravani and Josef Parvizi discuss their paper, “Intracranial Recordings of the Human Orbitofrontal Cortical Activity during Self-Referential Episodic and Valenced Self-Judgments”, with JNeurosci Reviewing Editor Erin Rich.

Hi Marianne, I will be in the meeting as well. But I have booked a room with two beds at the Hampton Inn Magnificent Mile from Oct 4 through Oct 9. I would like a female roommate, and I don't mind the room temperature. If you are interested in sharing the room with me, please let me know. Thank you, Minseon Park

Dear All, I will be in Chicago between October 4 and 10, 2024. Don't hesitate to get in touch with me if you wish to share a room with 2 beds to share the cost. I want to be matched with a female roommate. I feel extremely cold most of the time of the year. I would like to be matched with someone who does not mind keeping the heater on to a high degree. Bests Marianne Monet

As an author, I see a lot of debate around the use of AI images and chatGPT for writing and illustration purposes, as well as for educational purposes. In my opinion, chatGPT can be an aide for an educator - as a chalkboard might be - a tool with which to convey concepts. Given the issues with data provenance, biases inherent to datasets that can be propagated, and more, I err on the side of caution. When it comes to illustrations for example, in my opinion, hand drawn imagery has an appeal that AI driven CGIs just don't posses - after all, our brains evolved to appreciate art created by the human hand and the beauty in nature. However, AI is here to stay and as it gets better, we can get cleverer at using them in limited use-case scenarios. I also think it can be tremendously helpful in eradicating some language barriers and social determinants of success by helping, say, non-native English speakers understand concepts better with clear explanations available through chatGPT. Having played devil's advocate, I would end with what I started - use AI with caution, and as a tool, but always rely on your own insight and logic in how you use these tools. It is also important to weigh the benefits and harm of using AI for the use case under consideration.

Yes! I have an Art of Neuroscience booth again this year which I'm very much looking forward to, and will also be presenting a poster! The annual neuroscience conference is usually very nostalgic and even emotional for me. It is an opportunity to meet with friends, old and new, learn about new research, catch up with mentors and students, friends from neuroscience summer schools and grad school etc. One topic that I'm fascinated by is the neuroscience of studying consciousness. Last year, I very much enjoyed the panel, and I'm curious to see if the explosion of AL and ML techniques would have added new avenues to investigate theories of consciousness and big data. This is of course, just a long standing academic curiosity of mine. I am also very much looking forward to seeing topics related to my own research - sensory neuroscience as well as drug discovery and development for AD/ADRD. I love attending the exhibits and learning about new technologies, equipment, and software available to measure, image, and analyze neuronal data from different species. If I could make one suggestion, it would be to emphasize presentations that are rigorous but also those which are espousing values of transparency. I do wish to see more work where scientists are able to openly speak about experiments that disproved the null hypothesis or resulted in pivots in experimental methodologies or goals because the underlying assumptions were incorrect. This would require a change in the research ecosystem as a whole as we shift away from "flashy findings" to "rigorous methodologies" regardless of outcomes. #rigorchampion

Dear fellow neuro-lovers, A few years ago, after my post-doctoral fellowship ended and I was thinking about next steps, I started working in Program Development as a contractor at the National Institute on Aging. While I do not really participate in bench research directly anymore in this capacity, I still do a lot of research and contribute to journal articles (mostly reviews). A big project I work on is trying to address, if you will, the "modifiable" factors to improve the research infrastructure supporting the transition of promising candidate therapeutics through the translational pipeline to the clinic - in other words, overcoming the "valley of death" in translational research. In order to do so, a lot of my research revolves around meta-analyses of the research landscape - how rigorously are studies being conducted? Are they being balanced for sex? Are studies reporting null results as often as they do promising data.... The list goes on. As a curator of the Alzheimer's Preclinical Efficacy Database (AlzPED, https://alzped.nia.nih.gov/), we do this precisely - curate individual article, evaluate them for rigor and reproducibility, and then analyze the reporting patterns as a whole to identify the trends in the research landscape. Our analysis demonstrates that critical elements of rigor are frequently absent from published studies (yes, even from 2023!) which is preventable and diminishes the predictive value of these mostly publicly funded studies. Our focus has been to therefore encourage the research community to adopt principles of rigor, open science and data sharing, and transparent reporting practices to address these modifiable barriers to the discovery of therapeutics for neurodegenerative disorders. I've also been focused on working on several personal research projects of mine. I have been working on my next book, a follow-up to Baby Senses. This has been taking a lot of my time outside of work but I've been excited to pursue this work. I have also been working on developing a suite of educational tools for neuroscience outreach! If you have any questions or comments about my research, I'd be delighted to chat more about it and will be at SfN this year - I look forward to conversations with all of you!