News and Announcements
T32 Training Grant
Neuroscience PhD candidates Adam Hall and Jenna McGrath have been awarded two years of stipend and other support funding through the T32 Training Grant on Innovative Approaches to Spinal Cord Injury. Peter Baas, PhD, professor, Department of Neurobiology & Anatomy, is principal investigator on the grant and director of the T32 program. Michael Lane, PhD, associate professor, Department of Neurobiology & Anatomy, is co-PI and co-director.
Recent Graduate Student Awards
- Prize for scientific illustration (cover of July issue of the journal Biological Psychiatry "Molecular and clinical markers of Neurodegeneration:" Shrobona Guha
- International Behavioral Neuroscience Meeting - Best Graduate Student Poster Award: Nancy Mack
- Dean's Graduate Student Travel Award: Xiaohuan Sun
- Optogenetics Gordon Research Conference: Excellence in Citizenship Honorable Mention: Ashley Opalka, Candace Rizzi-Wise
- Drexel University Global Engagement Funding Award: Ashley Opalka
- SFARI Thalamocortical Interactions Gordon Research Seminar Travel Award: Ashley Opalka
- NIH F31 Predoctoral Fellowship: Micaela O’Reilly, Trevor Smith, Nicholas Stachowski, Kathleen Bryant
- NSF GFRP Predoctoral Fellowship: Alison Bashford
- NSF GFRP Predoctoral Fellowship: Shanna Samels
- T32 Training Grant Appointees: Shayna Singh, Jeremy Weinberger, Jenna McGrath, Adam Hall
- Dean’s Fellowship for Excellence in Collaborative or Themed Research: Shrobona Guha
- Bondi Award for Research Excellence: Ashley Opalka
- Drexel University Research Excellence Award: Sarah Bennison
- NIH Diversity-based Supplements to R01grants: Ash Islam, Taylor McCorkle, Candace Rizzi-Wise
- Graduate College Blue & Gold Fellowships: Alison Bashford, Sierra Coleman, Nishell Savory
Recent Presentations
Anthony Moreno-Sanchez, PhD candidate in the Ausborn and von Reyn labs, gave a talk on “Organization of dendritic inputs to shape visuomotor integration in the Drosophila looming circuit.” at the Small Circuits and Behavior 2023 meeting in Philadelphia, PA , August, 2023.
Shayna Singh, Neuroscience PhD candidate in the Dougherty Lab, gave a talk on “Postnatal development of ‘rhythmogenic’ currents in spinal Shox2 interneurons,” at the Motor Control: Spinal Circuits and Beyond Meeting in St. Andrews, Scotland, June, 2023.
Shayna Singh, Neuroscience PhD candidate in the Dougherty Lab, gave a talk on “Postnatal development of ‘rhythmogenic’ currents in spinal Shox2 interneurons,” at the NINDS T32 Workshop at The University of Pennsylvania, June 6, 2023.
Breanne E. Pirino, PhD candidate in the Barson Lab, presented a poster on "The kappa-opioid receptor in the nucleus accumbens shell: Factors in the effects on ethanol drinking," at the Research Society on Alcohol in Bellevue, Washington, June, 2023.
Breanne E. Pirino, PhD candidate in the Barson Lab, gave a talk as an Enoch Gordis Research Recognition Award finalist on "The kappa-opioid receptor in the nucleus accumbens shell: Factors in the effects on ethanol drinking", at the Research Society on Alcohol meeting in Bellevue, Washington, June 2023.
Breanne E. Pirino, PhD candidate in the Barson Lab, presented a poster on "Effects of the kappa-opioid receptor in the nucleus accumbens shell on ethanol drinking: Influence of sex, subregion targeted, and prior ethanol intake," at the Therapeutic Potential for Kappa Opioids in Pain and Addiction meeting in Bethesda, Maryland, March 30, 2023.
Jason Wheeler, Neuroscience MS student in the Detloff Lab, presented a poster on “Intrathecal Injection of Polarized Macrophage Exosomes Reduces Mechanical and Thermal Pain Sensation in Spinal Cord Injured Rats,” at the World Congress for the International Association for the Study of Pain in Toronto, Ontario, September, 2022.
Shrobona Guha, MS, Neuroscience PhD candidate in the Baas Lab, presented a poster on “Investigating the Role of Microtubule-Associated Motor Protein KIFC1 at the Synapse,” at the Gordon Research Conference on Cell Biology of the Neuron in Waterville Valley, New Hampshire, June, 2022.
John Walker, MS, PhD candidate in the Detloff Lab gave a platform presentation on “Nociception Impedes Grasping Recovery in the Spinal Cord Injured Rat” at the Neural Control of Movement Meeting in Dublin, Ireland, July, 2022.
Taylor McCorkle MS, PhD candidate in the Raghupathi Lab gave a presentation on “The nicotinic acetylcholine receptor modulator AVL-3288 attenuates hippocampal-based cognitive deficits following repeated mild traumatic brain injury in adolescent rats”, at the IBNS annual meeting in Glasgow UK in June 2022.
Jeremy Weinberger, MS, PhD candidate in the Côté Lab gave a platform presentation on “Multisite Electrode Array to Optimize Epidural Stimulation for Spasticity Following Spinal Cord Injury” at the International Motoneuron Society meeting in Banff, Canada in June 2022.
Recent Publications
Emily M. Black, PhD neuroscience ’19, Shanna Samels, neuroscience PhD candidate, Xu W, Jessica Barson, PhD, associate professor, Caroline Bass, PhD, associate professor University at Buffalo, Sandhya Kortagere, PhD, professor and Rodrigo España, PhD, professor, published “Hypocretin / Orexin Receptor 1 Knockdown in GABA or Dopamine Neurons in the Ventral Tegmental Area Differentially Impact Mesolimbic Dopamine and Motivation for Cocaine,” in Addiction Neuroscience, in press.
Breanne Pirino, MS, neuroscience PhD candidate, Abigail Kelley, PhD student, Anushree Karkhanis, PhD, assistant professor at Binghamton University and Jessica Barson, PhD, associate professor published "A critical review of effects on ethanol intake of the dynorphin/kappa opioid receptor system in the extended amygdala: From inhibition to stimulation" in Alcohol: Clinical and Experimental Research on June 1, 2023.
Mariah Wulf, MS, neuroscience PhD candidate, published “Consequences of spinal cord injury on the sympathetic nervous system” in Frontiers in Cellular Neuroscience on February 28, 2023.
Katherine Locke, MS ’19, fourth-year MD student, Margo Randelman, PhD neuroscience ’21, Lyandysha Zholudeva, PhD neuroscience ’18 and Michael Lane, PhD, associate professor published “Respiratory Plasticity Following Spinal Cord Injury: Perspectives From Mouse to Man” in the October 2022 issue of Neural Regeneration.
Shayna Singh and Jenna McGrath, neuroscience PhD candidates; Ngoc Ha, PhD neuroscience ’20; and Kimberly Dougherty, PhD, associate professor published “Identification of Adult Spinal Shox2 Neuronal Subpopulations Based on Unbiased Computational Clustering of Electrophysiological Properties” in the August 2022, issue of Frontiers in Neural Circuits.
Andrew Gargiulo, PhD neuroscience ’19, Preeti Badve, MS interdisciplinary health sciences ’15, Genevieve Curtis, PhD neuroscience ’22, Breanne Pirino, neuroscience PhD candidate and Jessica Barson, PhD, associate professor published “Inactivation of the Thalamic Paraventricular Nucleus Promotes Place Preference and Sucrose Seeking in Male Rats,” in the August 2022 issue of Psychopharmacology.
Breanne Pirino, MS, neuroscience PhD candidate, Cydney Martin, BS, neuroscience PhD candidate, Brody Carpenter, MS, neuroscience PhD candidate, Genevieve Curtis, PhD, neuroscience '22, Christina Curran-Alfaro, MS, neuroscience PhD candidate, Shanna Samels, BS, neuroscience PhD candidate, Jacqueline Barker, PhD, associate professor, Anushree Karkhanis, assistant professor at Binghamton University and Jessica Barson, PhD, associate professor published "Sex-related differences in pattern of ethanol drinking under the intermittent-access model and its impact on exploratory behavior in Long-Evans rats" in Alcohol: Clinical and Experimental Research on July, 2022.
Shrobona Guha, MS, neuroscience and PhD candidate, published an illustration titled “Neuronal Blossoms” on the front cover of the July 2022 issue of the journal Biological Psychiatry, “Molecular and Clinical Markers of Neurodegeneration.”
Hema Muralidharan, PhD neuroscience ‘20, Shrobona Guha, MS, neuroscience and PhD candidate, Peter Baas, PhD, professor, Kazuhito Toyooka, PhD, assistant professor, Ankita Patil, PhD neuroscience ’21, Sarah Bennison, PhD neuroscience ’22 and Xiaohuan Sun, MS, neuroscience and PhD candidate published “KIFC1 Regulates the Trajectory of Migratory Neurons” in the Journal of Neuroscience on March, 2022.