Society for Neuroscience and Detroit-Style Pizza (in Chicago?!)
Gabriel Neal (left) and Ava Pal (right) at the Society for Neuroscience 2024 Annual Meeting in Chicago, Illinois.
Every year, neuroscientists from all over the world come together at the Society for Neuroscience (SfN) Annual Meeting. This year, with 22,000 registered attendees, the conference was held in the beautiful city of Chicago, Illinois. I had the opportunity to present my research titled, Maturation of prosocial behavior and the prefrontal cortex depends on endocrine development, along with fellow UBRP student Ava Pal. The goal of my project was to identify structural changes in the brain that correlate with the emergence of prosocial behavior. We found that cortical thinning in the prefrontal cortex, likely due to synaptic remodeling, and the emergence of prosociality correlates with hormonal markers of development. Our work generated significant interest from other labs and caught the attention of program officers from the National Institutes of Health. I would say an overwhelming success!
Meetup with members of NSCSAS, a student-run organization at the University of Arizona, as we prepared to play our kazoos for SfN’s interactive opening lecture.
In addition to presenting, I was also able to attend graduate school fairs, lectures, panels, and poster presentations from other researchers. It was refreshing to be able to speak to researchers with a similar career trajectory to my goals, and discuss everything from our science to life in general. A highlight of the conference was an advocacy panel about animals in research. The session included a patient perspective from a young woman with Spinal Muscular Atrophy (SMA) where she detailed her journey of being a part of a successful clinical trial. Her story, as well as the entire session, was very encouraging as a researcher who understands the importance of animals in research.
While I felt slightly exhausted from the structure of the conference itself, I was still able to enjoy the city of Chicago. From cool speakeasies to breweries, it felt like I only touched the tip of the iceberg of what Chicago has to offer. At one brewery in particular I won song bingo and ate Detroit-style pizza the same night - a culinary paradox I did not expect. Also, I touched the bean!
With the UBRP Travel Award making this trip possible, I could not be more thankful. UBRP gave me the chance to truly probe into what it takes to be a scientist and more importantly find a passion I want to pursue.