Students at Doane Stuart celebrated Brain Awareness Day on Wednesday, March 8. View Photo Gallery
The day’s activities were in conjunction with, and sponsored by, the Society for Neuroscience Hudson-Berkshire Chapter and The Dana Foundation. (https://www.sfn.org/baw/). The Society for Neuroscience is an international professional society for scientists that study all aspects of brain function – from physicians to basic science researchers. The local chapter is headed by Dr Annalisa Scimemi who is a professor of Biology at SUNY Albany.
Part of the directive of the SFN is community outreach to try and show (in this case students) the kinds of research that is being done in their community. As well as letting them interact with the people doing the research.
The morning’s events kicked off with the Kindergarten class’s stylish and appropriate rendition of “If I Only Had a Brain” from the Wizard of Oz and a welcome from Dr. Annalisa Scimemi.
Lower School students then visited and participated in interactive brain demos and institutional tables including a demo from Skidmore by Dr. Sarita Lagalwar – “Neuro-Y for kids”; a demo from SUNY-BIO stydents by Tiffany Henry and Tyler Grant “M-Track – Jeopardy”; a table/demo from AMC/SUNY-PSY students Emily Mahoney and Jason Jacobskind – “PSY and VBM software” and a table called “Meet the bee” with Doane Stuart student Shan Leng ’17 – just to name just a few!
Upper School students enjoyed the presentations in the Golub Interfaith Chapel by biology and psychology professors at SUNY Albany. Topics included “Again, and again, and again: how the brain generates obsessions” by Kelsey Fleming (SUNY Biology), “Who am I? Should I stay or should I go? How neurons find their spot in the network” by Dr. Paolo Forni (SUNY Biology) and “Sex differences in mood disorders and the brain” by Dr. Damian Zuloaga (SUNY Psychology).
Middle School students participated in the presentations of informative posters addressing the following advanced topics including:
– “Role of BMP signaling in controlling neuronal cell fate in vomeronasal organ”
– “PAR1 activation induces rapid changes in glutamate uptake and astrocyte morphology”
– “Ventral pallidum deep brain stim ulation has potent efficacy for various seizure phenotypes”
– “Neuronal glutamate transporters control dopaminergic signaling in the striatum”
– “Sex differences in neural activation patterns in HPA axis associated brain regions following
repeated methamphetamine exposure”
– “Formation of the olfactory bulbs and connection of the olfactory/vomeronasal neurons to the brain are not needed for GnRH-1 neuronal migration from the nose to the hypothalamus”
Thank you to Doane Stuart instructor Dr. David Wells for his involvement in bringing this incredible and unique experience to Doane Stuart and it’s students, and to Rensselaer County Executive Kathleen Jimino for visiting us for this special occasion.
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LEARN MORE AT
https://sites.google.com/site/sfnhudsonberkshire/bad
http://www.dana.org/BAW/