Installation and Dismantle Installation and Dismantling Dates and Hours Installation Friday, November 11 9 a.m. – 4 p.m. PST Dismantling Wednesday, November 16 4 p.m. - 6 p.m. PST Online Exhibitor Service Manual The Online Exhibitor Service Manual containing a complete set of service forms will be available August 2. Service Desk The Exhibitor Service Desk will be open during installation to assist exhibitors with verification and adjustments of their orders for labor, furniture, and other auxiliary services. The Service Desk will be staffed throughout the meeting. Convention Center Rules and Regulations Exhibitor compliance with the San Diego Convention Center is mandatory. Floor Load and General Lighting The exhibit floor load of the San Diego Convention Center is 350 lbs. per sq. ft. For heavy machinery or displays, contact The Expo Group. 25% of lighting is provided during move-in and move-out. Lighting one (1) hour prior to show opening each day will be 100%. At the close of the show each day, lightin...

We examined the effect of linguistic comprehension on early perceptual encoding in a series of electrophysiological and behavioral studies on humans. Using the fact that pictures of faces elicit a robust and reliable evoked response that peaks at ∼170 ms after stimulus onset (N170), we measured the N170 to faces that were preceded by primes that referred to either faces or scenes. When the primes were auditory sentences, the magnitude of the N170 was larger when the face stimuli were preceded by sentences describing faces compared to sentences describing scenes. In contrast, when the primes were visual, the N170 was smaller after visual primes of faces compared to visual primes of scenes. Similar opposing effects of linguistic and visual primes were also observed in a reaction time experiment in which participants judged the gender of faces. These results provide novel evidence of the influence of language on early perceptual processes and suggest a surprising mechanistic description of this interaction: l...

The ability to remember changes in the surroundings is fundamental for daily life. It has been proposed that novel events producing dopamine release in the hippocampal CA1 region could modulate spatial memory formation. However, the role of hippocampal dopamine increase on weak or strong spatial memories remains unclear. We show that male mice exploring two objects located in a familiar environment for 5 minutes created a short-term memory (weak) that cannot be retrieved one day later, whereas 10 minutes exploration created a long-term memory (strong) that can be retrieved one day later. Remarkably, hippocampal dopamine elevation during the encoding of weak object location memories (OLMs) allowed their retrieval one day later but dopamine elevation during the encoding of strong OLMs promoted the preference for a familiar object location over a novel object location after 24 hours. Moreover, dopamine uncaging after the encoding of OLMs did not have effect on weak memories whereas on strong memories diminish...

Maintenance of normal structure of the enteric nervous system (ENS), which regulates key gastrointestinal functions, requires robust homeostatic mechanisms, since by virtue of its location within the gut wall, the ENS is subject to constant mechanical, chemical, and biological stressors. Using transgenic and thymidine analog-based experiments, we previously discovered that neuronal turnover—where continual neurogenesis offsets ongoing neuronal loss at steady state—represents one such mechanism. Although other studies confirmed that neuronal death continues into adulthood in the myenteric plexus of the ENS, the complicated nature of thymidine analog presents challenges in substantiating the occurrence of adult neurogenesis. Therefore, it is vital to employ alternative, well-recognized techniques to substantiate the existence of adult enteric neurogenesis in the healthy gut. Here, by using established methods of assessing nuclear DNA content and detecting known mitotic marker phosphor-histone H3 (pH3) in Hu+...

Mitral cells (MCs) and tufted cells (TCs) in the olfactory bulb (OB) act as an input convergence hub and transmit information to higher olfactory areas. Since first characterized, they have been classed as distinct projection neurons based on size and location: laminarly arranged MCs with a diameter larger than 20 µm in the mitral layer (ML) and smaller TCs spread across both the ML and external plexiform layers (EPL). Recent in vivo work has shown that these neurons encode complementary olfactory information, akin to parallel channels in other sensory systems. Yet, many ex vivo studies still collapse them into a single class, mitral/tufted, when describing their physiological properties and impact on circuit function. Using immunohistochemistry and whole-cell patch–clamp electrophysiology in fixed or acute slices from adult mice, we attempted to align in vivo and ex vivo data and test a soma size-based classifier of bulbar projection neurons using passive and intrinsic firing properties. We found that the...

The hallucinogenic tea known as Ayahuasca is made from a combination of psychoactive plants. The plants contribute the active components DMT or 5MeODMT, as well as MAO inhibitors for oral activity. The tea is used by a number of syncretic religions in the Amazon and is a legal ‘sacrament’ in Brazil. Recently a branch of the Uniâo do Vegetal (UDV), a Brazilian syncretic group practicing in New Mexico, was granted the right to use the Ayahuasca sacrament by the U.S. Supreme Court. As a ‘new designer drug’, 5MeODMT has been growing in popularity with the youth drug culture. Using the Behavior Pattern Monitor locomotor paradigm in rats, we examined the effects of these compounds on exploratory behavior. Prior to combining the pharmacological components of the tea, we performed a dose response of the MAOI, harmaline (0, 0.03, 0.1, 0.3, and 1.0 mg/kg). Harmaline produced a dose dependent decrease in crossings, holepokes, and rearings while having no effect on spatial d, a measure of the linearity of motor paths....

Preterm infants are at risk for brain injury and neurodevelopmental impairment due, in part, to white matter injury following chronic hypoxia exposure. However, the precise molecular mechanisms by which neonatal hypoxia disrupts early neurodevelopment are poorly understood. Here, we constructed a brain-wide map of the regenerative response to newborn brain injury using high-resolution imaging-based spatial transcriptomics to analyze over 800,000 cells in a mouse model of chronic neonatal hypoxia. Additionally, we developed a new method for inferring condition-associated differences in cell type spatial proximity, enabling the identification of niche-specific changes in cellular architecture. We observed hypoxia-associated changes in region-specific cell states, cell type composition, and spatial organization. Importantly, our analysis revealed mechanisms underlying reparative neurogenesis and gliogenesis, while also nominating pathways that may impede circuit rewiring following neonatal hypoxia. Altogether...

ANNIVERSARIES ENCOURAGE REFLECTION— and this essay has offered the opportunity to look back on the history of the Society with an eye to celebrating what’s to come. As Neuroscience 2020 approached and SfN celebrated its 50th year as a Society, events didn’t quite follow the original vision. SfN’s 50th year, so thoughtfully planned and considered, served as a reminder that you cannot plan for everything. In January 2020, news outlets in the United States first started reporting about a novel coronavirus circulating in China. By March, COVID-19, the disease resulting from that coronavirus, was declared a global pandemic, with hundreds of thousands of cases around the world. Things changed quickly with regards to the Society’s day-to-day business. Washington, D.C., where SfN is headquartered, saw cases rising rapidly and began a “stay-at-home” order that lasted for months. SfN staff began working remotely full-time, like most offices worldwide. Meanwhile, labs around the globe shut down in a matter of days, s...

Food intake is controlled by multiple converging signals: hormonal signals that provide information about energy homeostasis and hedonic and motivational aspects of food and food cues that can drive nonhomeostatic or “hedonic” feeding. The ventral pallidum (VP) is a brain region implicated in the hedonic and motivational impact of food and food cues, as well as consumption of rewards. Disinhibition of VP neurons has been shown to generate intense hyperphagia, or overconsumption. While VP GABA neurons have been implicated in cue-elicited reward-seeking and motivation, the role of these neurons in the hyperphagia resulting from VP activation remains unclear. Here, we used designer receptors exclusively activated by designer drugs to activate VP GABA neurons in nonrestricted male and female rats during chow and sucrose consumption. We found that activation of VP GABA neurons increases consumption of chow and sucrose in male rats, but not female rats. Together, these findings suggest that activation of VP GABA...

SfN Announces the 2023 ECPA Class The 2023 class of Early Career Policy Ambassadors (ECPAs) has been announced! We welcome 10 early-career scientists representing a variety of career levels and geographic locations. Ambassadors gain the necessary skills to advocate for science and to encourage those in their personal networks to join the conversation, kicking off by participating in SfN’s annual Hill Day.