Guide: Dr. Laxmi T. Rao
Preethi Hegde defended her PhD research work yesterday on her topic: Behavioural and Electrophysiological Approaches to Assess the Efficacy of Environmental Enrichment in Extinction of Fear Memory in Wistar Rats.
Guide: Dr. Laxmi T. Rao Congratulations to Dr Ravikiran and his wife, as she delivered a baby girl on 26th June 2011.
In today's journal club, Meghana Rao (2nd year PhD scholar) reviewed article from Autonomic Neuroscience entitled Paraventricular nucleus modulates autonomic and neuroendocrine responses to acute restraint stress in rats by Cristiane Busnardo et al.
Takeaways: During stress, GABAergic inhibition causes PVN to be quiescent. At rest, Glutamatergic activation of PVN takes place leading to bradycardia and decreased blood pressure. Nirmala (3rd year PhD Scholar) presented a seminar on the neurobiological aspects of meditation and consciousness. She touched upon some of the different approaches that are being taken to study this field.
Mahati (4th year PhD scholar - CSIR Senior Research Fellow) presented her PhD progress seminar titled "Role of enriched environment and antidepressant treatment on depression-induced cognitive deficits."
Her Guide: Dr. BS Shankaranarayana Rao The month long Yoga Appreciation Course organized by the NIMHANS Advanced Centre for Yoga was inaugurated today by Mr. Keshav Desiraju, Additional Secretary, Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, Govt. of India in the presence of Dr. Satish Chandra, Director and Vice Chancellor of NIMHANS; Dr. V Ravi, Registrar NIMHANS and Professor and Head of Neurovirology; and Dr. BN Gangadhar, Professor of Psychiatry and Program Director, Advanced Centre for Yoga.
Mr. Keshav Desiraju appreciated NIMHANS for its broad outlook in adopting modern and ancient systems of medicine and underscored the need for communicating to the public that mental illness is not something to be ashamed of and is an illness like any other. Dr. Satish Chandra added that NIMHANS has had an Ayurveda unit in collaboration with AYUSH for a long time and that he himself has done research with yoga adjuvant therapy in patients with refractory epilepsy. There are several ongoing research projects in NIMHANS using modern and ancient systems of medicine. Dr. Satish Chandra then remembered that Dr. T Desiraju, who was an esteemed scientist from the Department of Neurophysiology, had worked on Project Consciousness more than 20 years ago. David Joseph Titus, Post Doc at University of Miami, Miller School of Medicine and NIMHANS Alum (MPhil and PhD), presented a seminar on Central Pattern Generators: Modulation of locomotor circuitry by interneurons in the spinal cord. The talk was based on his post doctoral work at the department of Neurophysiology, University of Wisconsin, Madison.
This talk was organized by Bangalore Chapter of the Society for Neuroscience. The workshop covers the following areas:
(i) Molecular &Cellular Neuroscience (e.g. Systems biology) ; (ii) Systems&Cognitive Neuroscience (e.g. electrophysiology/neurophysiology); (iii) Neuroimaging& Clinical Neuroscience (including computational neuroscience). (iV)Modelling workshop. Click here to know more Mahati Krishna (3rd Year PhD Scholar) presented the first Journal club session - an article from Molecular Psychiatry by Anacker et al., on 18th June in the Pathology seminar hall. The paper is titled "Antidepressants increase human hippocampal neurogenesis by activating the glucocorticoid receptor" and can be found online here.
There was an animated discussion exploring the results and discussions. While effect of neurogenesis in animal hippocampal cells is well explored, this in vitro study focused on neurogenesis from the multipotent, human hippocampal progenitor cell line HPC03A/07. During the discussion the main thesis of the paper about human hippocampal neurogenesis did not seem to follow from the data. Perhaps the supplementary data provides clarity and needs to be explored. Yesterday, there was a talk by Dr Shashank M Dravid organised by SfN Bengaluru chapter, and held at Neuropathology Seminar hall.
He has been studying on the functions of Delta Glutamate receptors for the past 6 years. He shared his findings and views on how knocking down their gene would mimic features similar to 'Autism' in mice. He also emphasized on the role of these receptors in synapse formation. Students and faculties from different depts participated during the discussion. |
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August 2019
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