The 42nd Annual Meeting of the Society for Neuroscience was held in New Orleans, LA in October with a remarkable 28,000 scientists attending. Several research groups from the Child Study Center were represented in the scientific sessions, including the laboratories of Paul Lombroso, Kevin Pelphrey, Hanna Stevens, and Flora Vaccarino.
Scientists working with Paul Lombroso presented five posters on work analyzing striatally enriched tyrosine phosphatase (STEP). Jonathan Brouillette, postdoctoral fellow, presented on the role of STEP in cognitive decline of aging (as shown in this picture). Pradeep Kurup, associate research scientist, presented on the role of STEP in Parkinson’s Disease. Jian Xu, associate research scientist showed recent results on the interaction of STEP with a gene implicated in schizophrenia, neuregulin-1. Chimezie Ononenyi, a research assistant, explored findings on other molecules regulated by STEP. A former associate research scientist from the Lombroso lab, Susan Goebel-Goody, also had a poster presentation on how reducing STEP levels in a mouse model of Fragile X improved cognitive function.
Danielle Bolling, a graduate student from the Pelphrey Child Neuroscience Lab, chaired a Nanosymposium with several speakers on Social Cognition. In this session, Laura Anderson, a research fellow working with several members of the Pelphrey Lab, spoke about neural responses to biological motion using near infrared methods, a non-invasive method for monitoring brain function. The Pelphrey lab also presented three posters--one headed by Associate Research Scientist Martha Kaiser on the neural response to biological motion in children at genetic risk for autism, one headed by Associate Research Scientist Brent Vander Wyk on changes over time in children’s neural response to biological motion and one presented by Danielle Bolling on the neural response to social exclusion in siblings of children with autism.
The lab of Hanna Stevens presented recent findings in a poster about the impact of prenatal stress on inhibitory neuron development.
Two members of the Vaccarino lab presented in the nanosymposium format—Jessica Lennington, a postdoctoral fellow, discussed analysis of gene expression in the basal ganglia of subjects with Tourette Syndrome revealing the importance of immune pathways and cholinergic signaling. Natalina Salmaso, an associate research scientist, presented recent data showing increased anxiety in mice lacking fibroblast growth factor 2 (FGF2) which could be rescued by giving the mice FGF2 as adults, suggesting its role as a potential therapeutic treatment. Posters from the Vaccarino Lab featured postdoctoral fellow Simone Tomasi presenting on the induction of brain gyri by FGF2 in embryonic mice, graduate student Dionysios Xenos presenting on recovery in the brain from neonatal hypoxia with environmental enrichment in mice, and former Associate Research Scientist, Karen Smith now at University of Louisiana-Lafeyette presenting on gene expression differences when FGF receptor 1 is eliminated from brain astrocytes.
Scientists working with Chris Pittenger, a Yale Psychiatric Researcher with an appointment in the Child Study Center, presented a poster on modeling Tourette Syndrome in mice by using cutting edge techniques to selectively remove cholinergic neurons from the striatum. In addition, recent findings from a collaboration of Bob King with scientists at NIMH were presented in a talk exploring genetic variants of the serotonin transporter gene in subjects with Tourette syndrome.