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In March, SfN members met with legislators to advocate for increased funding of brain research during the Society’s 13th Annual Capitol Hill Day.

During SfN’s 12th annual Capitol Hill Day, advocates representing 25 states and six countries held 93 Congressional meetings.

While it was long thought birds did not have one, the avian ‘prefrontal cortex’ (PFC) is one of the prime areas of interest in contemporary avian neuroscience. Also known as the nidopallium caudolaterale (NCL), it is comparable to the PFC in terms of fu...

Adrenergic receptor stimulation may offer antiepileptic effects without negative effects on learning and memory, as is experienced with many antiepileptic therapies. This makes exploitation of adrenergic mechanisms a prime target for new antiepileptic t...

Weakly electric fish are an excellent model to study biogeographic and species differences in behavior. The electric organ discharge (EOD) is a quantifiable behavior that is easily compared across species and correlated with genetic data reflecting gene transfer between populations. Here we report on variation in EOD and mtDNA in two sympatric species-complexes found throughout the Amazon basin. Microsternarchus and Hypopygus are small gymnotiforms found in mixed species groups in 2º and 3º tributaries. These potentially isolated populations provide the opportunity to test the relationship between geographic isolation, sympatry and behavioral isolation in speciation. Fish were collected during two expeditions to the Rio Negro (12/02, 3/05) both during breeding season. Genetic and EOD data were analyzed from 339 individuals of Hypopygusand 167 of Microsternarchus. Variation in EOD and genotype was not perfectly congruent but some trends are apparent. We suggest that there are four species of Hypopygus and t...

In this study we recorded voltage gated Ca and K conductances with patch electrodes in hippocampal slices from female rats, which were ovariectomized (OVX) 1 week before the experiment. One experimental group was primed with estradiol at day 3 and 4 after OVX and received progesterone 4 hr before the start of the experiment. The second group was treated with estradiol at day 3 and 4, but received vehicle at the day of the experiment. The third group was not treated with hormones (only vehicle injections). We observed that the amplitude of both sustained and transient Ca currents were significantly enhanced in CA1 pyramidal neurons recorded in tissue from estradiol primed rats receiving progesterone when compared to the nontreated OVX controls; without estradiol priming Ca current amplitudes were small. Current amplitudes in tissue from rats treated with estradiol only, were at intermediate values. The voltage for half-maximal steady state inactivation of the transient Ca current was at a less negative valu...

The Society’s open-access journal, eNeuro, launched almost five years ago and has just published its 1,000th paper! Editor-in-Chief Christophe Bernard reflects on the journal’s growth and says thank you.

Sources of caffeine with beneficial antioxidant properties include teas that are derived from the holly Ilex species. These teas are unique and not related to green or black tea. Tea derived from I. guayusa is used by the Kichwa people in the Ecuadorian...

Neurotransmitters are released from nerve terminals and neuroendocrine cells by calcium-dependent exocytosis of vesicles. Before fusion, vesicles are docked to the plasma membrane and rendered release competent through a process called priming. Electrophysiological methods such as membrane capacitance measurements and carbon fiber amperometry accurately measure the fusion step of exocytosis with high time resolution but provide only indirect information about priming and docking. Total internal reflection fluorescence microscopy (TIRFM) enables the real-time visualization of vesicles, near the plasma membrane, as they undergo changes from one molecular state to the other. We devised a new method to analyze the mobility of vesicles, which not only allowed us to classify the movement of vesicles in three different categories but also to monitor dynamic changes in the mobility of vesicles over time. We selectively enhanced priming by treating bovine chromaffin cells with phorbol myristate acetate (PMA) or by ...