Society for Neuroscience 2011 and 2012

Neuroscience- Study of Structure and function of the Nervous System and Brain.

“- I'm a Neuroscientist.- What's that? What do you study?- I study your brain!” ― Vardan Hambardzumyan

The Society for Neuroscience (SFN) was funded in 1969 by Ralph W. Gerard who was a neurophysiologist and behavioral scientist. His primary work was on Schizophrenia.  The SFN conference is focused towards educating scientists and physicians around the world about the Nervous System and the Brain, as well as to develop new treatments, and inform the community. There are currently more than 30,000 members, which rates SFN as one of the biggest conferences in the nation.

As an undergraduate BRAiN fellow I had the amazing opportunity to attend both of the 2011 and 2012 Society for Neuroscience (SFN) international conference. The 2011 SFN conference was held in Washington D.C. on November 2011, and the 2012 SFN conference was held in New Orleans on October 2012. 

SFN 2012

Science was on the streets of New Orleans, and let me tell you that "Scientists know how to party!". After the conference everyone seemed to be enjoying a drink or two at the most famous Bourbon St. 

At the nanotechnology symposium, scientists presented projects on how the recent use of Nanotechnology has helped find the missing pieces of a puzzle that no one had yet solved. For example, using nanopillar electrodes rather than intracellular or extracellular electrodes on a single or multiple cells provides a much more accurate recording of an action potential. This nano-pillar technique is also less labor intensive, and can most importantly record the slightest changes in action potentials such of those that are caused by drugs and pharmaceuticals.  Another scientist then presented a power point on the importance of using nano-wires to obtain accurate information from both a single cell or a circuit of cells. This is important because, it helps scientists understand how cells communicate through synaptic connections while the cells are exposed to different stimulations which can be caused by different environments.  

Learning about the fast growing field of Nanotechnology within the field of Neuroscience was the most fascinating programs of the conference. The full symposium introduced Nanotechnology techniques that would improve our understanding of problems within neuroscience that have not yet been solved. Learning about some of the new ground breaking nano-techniques and their contribution to solving these problems in Neuroscience was impressive! These techniques are currently being implemented in both in-vitro (cells in a superficial environment) and in-vivo (animal models).  

The conference also featured career fairs on a regular basis for undergraduates, graduate students, post doctoral students, physicians and other professionals. Scientific exhibits where biotechnology companies presented their new developments was an essential part of the everyday conference, and they all gave away free science goodies!! Every evening there was also a special lecture or a social that was focused towards a particular group or topic. The presidential lecture was the biggest because there were so many scientist in one room at the same time. The presidential lecture speakers were well known scientists who had been in the Neuroscience field for many years, and whos work is known by everyone in the Neuroscience community. 

The video that won the contest this year was: video Contest

Citations: 

Cui B et al., 130.01. Nanotechnology for neuroscience - Intracellular recording of action potentials by nanopillar electrodes ¹Stanford Univ., STANFORD, CA; ²Harvard Univ., Cambridge, MA.

Shemesh O.A. et al., 130.03. Kinked three-dimensional nanowire transistor arrays for in-vivo intracellular recordings from single cells and neural networks Harvard Univ., Cambridge, MA.

SFN 2011

This was my second international conference as an undergraduate student, and it was the biggest! SFN 2011 Presidential Lecture  There were 30,000 attendees at the event! Knowledge of science was found in every corner of the Walter E. Washington Convention Center in Washington D.C. The video below shows the Presidential Lecture set up. This video is impressive because it gives a glimpse of the place where most of these scientists were gathered at the same time. My favorite part of the lecture was the Brain Awareness Video Contest: The Treasure Hunt Brain Awareness Video Contest: The Treasure Hunt  


Throughout the conference we had the opportunity to attend poster sessions, career fairs, symposiums, and event that were focused towards young minority research scientists. The poster sessions were held in a huge conference room, and there were endless aisles of posters of many topics within the field of neuroscience! I presented a poster at both the ENDURE (Enhancing Neuroscience Diversity through Undergraduate Research Education) and FUN (Funding Undergraduate Neuroscience) poster sessions, which were both focused on supporting minority undergraduate research in the field of Neuroscience. Along with a poster session, ENDURE also had a few symposiums throughout the week, their main topic was on how to seal the "leaky pipeline". The "leaky pipeline" refers to the lack of minorities in the research field, therefore there focus for this event was to provide information that would support and enhance the education the neuroscience faculty so that more minorities are involved in science. Both ENDURE and FUN were very informative, and specific towards my interests. It was definitely one of the my best experiences of the conference. 


Attending a full symposium on "Law and the Brain" was another interesting learning experience at this conference, at the symposium real individual cases were presented by Physicians and Neuroscientists, on how behavior depends on physical changes of brain chemistry, and how these changes correlate with physical characteristics of the brain. For example, according to these cases, tumors or drug side affects had lead to psychopathic behaviors. Scientists explained the ways that brain dysfunction can occur and lead to an inhibition of a persons actions. And it was further explained that even though a psychopath knew the distinction between right and wrong, they strongly believed that their psychopathic actions were not horrible behavior, but instead the actions were similar to that of eating an ice cream cone on a sunny day, when being on a diet. Which suggests that the psychopath felt the same level of guiltiness as that of any other person who was disrupting their diet by the action of eating an ice cream cone that was high in calories.