Another Successful Brain Awareness Week
UMB’s Neuroscience Outreach and Volunteer Association (NOVA) virtually visited with the UMB CURE Scholars (Continuing Umbrella of Research Experiences) this March in celebration of Brain Awareness Week, an annual global campaign to increase public awareness of the brain and the importance of neuroscience research. This year, the Scholars were able to virtually "tour" three neuroscience labs at UMB:
- The Thompson Lab, which uses the mouse as a model to study how neuronal transmission is altered in Major Depressive Disorder in order to develop better treatments for depression, led by Program in Neuroscience (PIN) student Andreas Wulff.
- The Calu Lab, which uses the rat to study individual differences in addiction vulerability and reward seeking to better characterize the learning mechanisms, brain regions and their activity which contribute to substance use disorders. This tour was led by PIN student Cassie Stapf.
- The McCarthy Lab, which uses the rat to study the origins and mechanisms of sex differences in brain development and their impact on later-life behavior, like play in juvenile animals. PIN students Ashley Marquardt and Sydney Ashton led this tour.
Additionally, the Scholars were able to see real brains from rodents and even humans!
Following the lab "tours", the Scholars spent some time with the volunteer PIN students asking questions about their path to science, what it's like to be in graduate school and who inspires them.
Thanks to the CURE Scholars for hosting us and to the Thompson, Calu and McCarthy labs for taking the time to prepare engaging virtual lab tours and sharing their passion for neuroscience research with the Scholars.