What's New
Dr. Nina Stachenfeld presented the Gisolfi Tutorial Lecture at the 2010 national American College of Sports Medicine. Each year this lecture is presented by a renowned scientist with expertise in fluid homeostasis, temperature regulation, or exercise physiology.
The lecture, named in honor of Carl V. Gisolfi, is one of only four named lectures for the college. Dr. Stachenfeld’s lecture, “Sex differences in human thermoregulation: implications for athletes, researchers and clinicians,” addressed hormonal effects on temperature regulation and the mechanisms for these effects.
Dr. Gisolfi was an internationally recognized environmental physiologist. His pioneering studies in thermoregulation, exercise, hydration, gastrointestinal function, as well as cellular responses to the heat and the actions of transmitters were regarded as major contributors to the scientific literature.
Dana Small, PhD, was awarded the 2010 Ruth Pike Award from the Department of Nutritional Sciences at Pennsylvania State University March 29th. This award is given on an annual basis to one individual who has made outstanding contributions to nutrition research. Dr. Small was the first neuroscientst to receive this honor.
Ruth Pike is a Professor Emeritus from Penn State. She established the Ruth Pike Lecture Award and Lecture Series, Frontiers in Nutrition Research, in 1986.
Researcher recognized for outstanding thesis in behavioral neuroscience
The Society for Neuroscience (SfN) has awarded the Donald B. Lindsley Prize to Nandakumar Narayanan, MD, PhD, and Kay M. Tye, PhD, during Neuroscience 2009, SfN’s annual meeting and the world’s largest source of emerging news on brain science and health. Supported by The Grass Foundation, the prize, which includes $2,500, recognizes an outstanding PhD thesis in the area of general behavioral neuroscience. The award was established in 1979 in honor of Donald B. Lindsley, PhD, a pioneer in the field of behavioral neuroscience.
Narayanan completed his thesis research in Dr. Mark Laubach’s laboratory at the John B. Pierce Laboratory and was a student in the Medical Scientist Training Program and Interdepartmental Neuroscience Program at Yale University. He is currently undergoing residency training in neurology at Yale.
Narayanan’s thesis studied the role of medial prefrontal cortex in executive control. His thesis work described how the dorsomedial prefrontal cortex suppresses inappropriate actions. He discovered that neurons in rodent prefrontal cortex fire persistently when rats must wait for a stimulus before making a movement and that these cells control the level of “delay activity” in the motor cortex. These findings suggest that inappropriate actions occur when the prefrontal cortex fails to achieve control over the motor system. He also discovered that neurons in the medial prefrontal cortex track successes and failures from one trial to the next and that rats exhibit brain potentials that are similar to those found in human beings when mistakes are made. His thesis research, so far, has led to six journal articles (Neuron, Journal of Neuroscience, Journal of Neurophysiology) and was supported by grants from the Tourette Syndrome Association and National Science Foundation to Mark Laubach.
These three papers are the core findings from the thesis:
http://spikelab.jbpierce.org/Publications/Narayanan-Laubach-Neuron-2006.pdf
http://spikelab.jbpierce.org/Publications/Narayanan-JNP-2008.pdf
http://spikelab.jbpierce.org/Publications/Narayanan-JNP-2009.pdf
Ivan de Araujo, DPhil was awarded the 2008 Ajinomoto Award for Research in Gustation at the International Symposium on Olfaction and Taste held in San Francisco in July.
Who's New
The John B. Pierce Laboratory welcomes our newest members:
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Lillie Nguyen, BS
Research Assistant
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Maartje Spetter, MS
Post Graduate Fellow
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Nicole Babb, BS
Research Assistant
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Linda Harenberg
Research Assistant |
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Newsletters
The John B. Pierce Laboratory publishes a semi-annual newsletter. If you would like to receive a copy, contact inquires@jbpierce.org.
