Quarterly Newsletter

MAY 2021

Welcome to the May, 2021 WIL Newsletter! We provide a brief round-up of what we’ve been up to and show the different ways to get involved in WIL. In this issue, we discuss our upcoming events at the International Behavioral Neuroscience Society (IBNS) annual meeting, highlight recent scientific articles published by members of Team WIL, and congratulate Angélica Minier-Toribio and Niko Rigney on receiving Outstanding Graduate Woman In Learning Awards from WIL in conjunction with IBNS.

WOMEN IN LEARNING AT THE INTERNATIONAL BEHAVIORAL NEUROSCIENCE SOCIETY ANNUAL MEETING

Our WIL Distinguished Career Panel at IBNS will feature IBNS keynote speakers and leading women in behavioral neuroscience: Drs. Marina Picciotto, Gina Quirarte, Tracey Shors, and Kay Tye. They will answer questions pertaining to science, career, and life will be on June 3, 2021 at 6:00 pm CDT. Register here, and please join us immediately after for a WIL happy hour! We’d love to see you. This event is free and open to all, even if you aren’t attending IBNS. 

This seminar will coincide with our appearance at the annual meeting for the International Behavioral Neuroscience Society. Catch us at the following times (all in CDT):

On Wednesday, June 2:

Dr. Hayley Fisher will present in the Travel Award Blitz, scheduled from 10:00 a.m. – 12:00 p.m. 

Drs. Nicole Ferrara, Janine Kwapis, and Sydney Trask will present in a session chaired by both Drs. Ferrara and Kwapis entitled “Contributions of the cingulate-retrosplenial cortical axis to learning and memory consolidation” from 1:30 – 3:30 p.m. 

Dr. Heidi Meyer will chair and present in a session entitled “Neural systems regulating responses to stress, threat, and safety” from 4:00 – 6:00 p.m.

On Thursday, June 3:

Dr. Abha Rajbhandari will present in a session entitled “Using Stress-Enhanced Fear Learning to Reveal Associative and Nonassociative Consequences of Traumatic Stress” from 4:00 – 6:00 p.m.

Dr. Hayley Fisher will present her poster from 8:00 – 9:00 p.m. in Poster Session 2.

Recent papers published by team WIL

A new paper from Dr. Abha Rajbhandari shows a role for the PAC1 receptor in sex-specific regulation of fear learning, generalization, and extinction.

Dr. Maddie Ray has a new preprint examining bidirectional control of reward and fear responding in the nucleus accumbens. 

Drs. Hayley Fisher and Maddie Ray are on a new paper examining the effects of alcohol consumption on later reversal learning.

A recent paper with Dr. Sydney Trask demonstrates differential patterns of age-related memory impairment and neurodegeneration between male and female rats.

A new review from Dr. Kylie Huckleberry discusses how adult neurogenesis in the dentate gyrus contributes to memory formation.

OUTSTANDING GRADUATE WOMEN IN LEARNING AWARD WINNERS

WIL, in conjunction with IBNS, was pleased to award two Outstanding Graduate Women in Learning awards for registration for this year’s IBNS annual meeting. Learn about our awardees below, and make sure to stop by their posters to welcome them to the WIL community!