2015 NEWSLETTER Many thanks to all who contributed to this newsletter. Please send feedback to Kris Thomason: thomason@ohsu.edu.

GRADUATES

Amanda Barkley-Levenson successfully defended her PhD dissertation, “Behavioral and neurobiological correlates of genetic risk for binge-like alcohol drinking” on April 13, 2015. Amanda has accepted a postdoctoral position with Abraham Palmer at University of California San Diego.

Emily Eastwood successfully defended her PhD dissertation, “Opioid pathways in methamphetamine intake” on April 20, 2015. Emily will start a postdoctoral position at the Fred Hutchison Cancer Center in November 2015.

Lauren Kruse successfully defended her PhD dissertation, “A role for Mpdz in ethanol withdrawal but not binge-like ethanol drinking” on May 26, 2015. Lauren accepted a postdoctoral position in Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at the University of Washington Seattle.

Joshua Kaplan successfully defended his PhD dissertation, “Cerebellar GABAA receptor contributions to alcohol intake and intoxication” on June 4, 2015. Josh accepted a postdoctoral position at the University of Washington Seattle.

John Harkness successfully defended his PhD dissertation, “Trace amine-associated receptor 1 regulation of methamphetamine intake and aversion” on Tuesday, September 1, 2015. John starts a postdoctoral fellowship with Barb Sorg at Washington State University in September. He will be studying the role of

perineuronal nets on cellular plasticity and function following cocaine exposure.

RECRUITMENT Many thanks to the members of the Admissions/Advisory Committee! Four students matriculated in Summer/Fall 2014. They all completed rotations and decided on the following mentors: Brittany Alperin – Joel Nigg; Eileen Torres – Jacob Raber, Andre Walcott – Andrey Ryabinin, and Alfredo Zúñiga – Andrey Ryabinin. Six students matriculated in Summer/Fall 2015. They are: Nadir Balba (MS, Psychology, SUNY at Buffalo, 2015); Erika Cuellar (MS, Biology, CSU Los Angeles, 2015); Samantha Friedrich (BS, Biology, UT Austin, 2012); Jordan Lueras (BA, Theology & Psychology, U of Portland, 2013); Carolynn Rafa Todd (BS, Biology & Psychology, U of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, 2015); and Elina Thomas (MS, Physiology, North Carolina State U, 2013).

QUALIFYING EXAM In our Summer 2014 newsletter we reported that graduate students Daicia Allen, Brett Dufour, Brian Mills, Nicholas Miner, Christie Pizzimenti, and Vanessa Jimenez were scheduled to take the qualifying exam in September. We are pleased to report that all six successfully completed the exam and were advanced to Ph.D. candidacy. Our qualifying exam format changed this year. Instead of a single-date, written exam, students complete a written comprehensive exam at the end of their first year, submit a written research proposal, make an oral presentation, and complete an oral exam. As of this writing, Calla Goeke, Rebecca Hood, and Scott Jones have passed their qualifying exam and have advanced to Ph.D. candidacy. We anticipate that Bene Ramirez and Amy William will complete their exam within the next month.

CHANGES! A common core curriculum was introduced in the 2014/15 academic year. The goals of the curriculum redesign are to ensure that all PhD graduate students receive broadly based training in the fundamental principles and practices of behavioral neuroscience research.

BEHAVIORAL NEUROSCIENCE STUDENT AWARDS

2014/15 ACADEMIC YEAR American Psychology Association Dissertation Research Award (3): Gabriela Alarcón, Leah Hitchcock, and Melanie Pina ARCS Foundation Scholar (1): Amy Williams Ashworth Graduate Training Award (2): Megan McClintick and Monique Smith Behavior, Biology, and Chemistry Travel Award (1): Christie Pizzimenti Cold Springs Harbor Course Attendee – Cellular Biology of Addiction (1): Monique Smith Individual NRSA (4): Gabriela Alarcón, Brett Dufour, Megan McClintick, and Monique Smith International Association on the Study of Pain travel Award (1): Monique Smith Japan Neuroscience Society Travel Award (1): Christie Pizzimenti Keystone Scholarship (1): Leah Hitchcock N.L. Tartar Trust Fellowship (4): Dominique Eghlidi, Megan McClintick, Melanie Pina, and Christie Pizzimenti Neuroscience Scholars Program Associate, Society for Neuroscience (1): Gabriela Alarcón NIDA/SfN Mini-Convention Travel and Poster Award (1): Leah Hitchcock

BEHAVIORAL NEUROSCIENCE STUDENT AWARDS 2014/15 ACADEMIC YEAR (CONTINUED)

OBI Neurobiology of Disease Fellowship (2): Melanie Pina and Monique Smith OHSU Graduate Student Organization Travel Award (3): Gabriela Alarcón, Leah Hitchcock, and Monique Smith OHSU Research Roadmap Scholarship (1) Christie Pizzimenti OHSU Research Week awards (5): Gabriela Alarcón, Joshua Kaplan, Christie Pizzimenti, Bene Ramirez, and Daicia Allen OMSI Genome Science Communication Fellowship (1): Morgan Wirthlin Oregon Pain Awareness Investigation Network Excellence in Pain Research Award (1): Monique Smith Oregon Society for Neuroscience, Best Graduate Student Oral Presentation (1): Dominique Eghlidi PARC Outreach Graduate Student Travel Award (3): Christie Pizzimenti, Monique Smith, Morgan Wirthlin Pavlovian Society Student Poster Award (1): Melanie Pina Psi Chi Graduate Research Award (2): Megan McClintick and Melanie Pina RSA Enoch Gordis Research Recognition Award Finalist (1): Melanie Pina RSA John T. And Patricia A. O’Neill Addiction Science Education Award (1): John Harkness RSA Student Merit Travel Award (6): Daicia Allen, Alexandre Colville, Vanessa Jimenez, Megan McClintick, Melanie Pina, and Monique Smith Training Grant Appointments (16): Daicia Allen, Alexandre Colville, Leah Hitchcock, Rebecca Hood, Vanessa Jimenez, Scott Jones, Jordan Lueras, Brian Mills, Nicholas Miner, Melanie Pina, Christie Pizzimenti, Bene Ramirez, Eileen Torres, Andre Walcott, Amy Williams, and Alfredo Zúñiga

STUDENT PUBLICATIONS Alarcón G, Cservenka A, Fair DA, Nagel BJ. Sex differences in the neural substrates of spatial working memory during adolescence are not mediated by endogenous testosterone. Brain Res. 2014 Dec 17;1593:40-54. PubMed Central PMCID: PMC4252582 [Available on 2015-12-17] Alarcón G, Cservenka A, Rudolph MD, Fair DA, Nagel BJ. Developmental sex differences in resting state functional connectivity of amygdala sub-regions. Neuroimage. 2015 Jul 15;115:235-44. PubMed Central PMCID: PMC4461484 [Available on 2016-07-15]

STUDENT PUBLICATIONS (CONTINUED) Barkley-Levenson AM, Crabbe JC. Distinct ethanol drinking microstructures in two replicate lines of mice selected for drinking to intoxication. Genes Brain Behav. 2015 Jun;14(5):398-410 Barkley-Levenson AM, Crabbe JC. Genotypic and sex differences in anxiety-like behavior and alcohol-induced anxiolysis in High Drinking in the Dark selected mice. Alcohol. 2015 Feb;49(1):29-36. PubMed Central PMCID: PMC4342118 [Available on 2016-02-01] Barkley-Levenson AM, Cunningham CL, Smitasin PJ, Crabbe JC. Rewarding and aversive effects of ethanol in High Drinking in the Dark selectively bred mice. Addict Biol. 2015 Jan;20(1):80-90. PubMed Central PMCID: PMC3866216 [Available on 2016-01-01] Crabbe JC, Metten P, Belknap JK, Spence SE, Cameron AJ, Schlumbohm JP, Huang LC, Barkley-Levenson AM, Ford MM, Phillips TJ. Progress in a replicated selection for elevated blood ethanol concentrations in HDID mice. Genes Brain Behav. 2014 Feb;13(2):236-46 PubMed Central PMCID: PMC3923418. Cservenka A, Alarcón G, Jones SA, Nagel BJ. Advances in Human Neuroconnectivity Research: Applications for Understanding Familial History Risk for Alcoholism. Alcohol Res. 2015;37(1):89-95. Review. PubMed Central PMCID: PMC4476606. Cservenka A, Jones SA, Nagel BJ. Reduced cerebellar brain activity during reward processing in adolescent binge drinkers. Dev Cogn Neurosci. 2015 Jun 30. pii: S1878-9293(15)00065-1. Eghlidi DH, Urbanski HF. Effects of Age and Estradiol on Gene Expression in the Rhesus Macaque Hypothalamus. Neuroendocrinology. 2015;101(3):236-45. PubMed Central PMCID: PMC4475460 [Available on 2016-02-26] Gubner NR, Cunningham CL, Phillips TJ. Nicotine enhances the locomotor stimulating but not the conditioned rewarding effect of ethanol in DBA/2J mice. Alcohol Clin Exp Res. 2015 Jan;39(1):64-72. PubMed Central PMCID: PMC4312001 [Available on 2016-01-01] Gubner NR, McKinnon CS, Phillips TJ. Effects of varenicline on ethanol-induced conditioned place preference, locomotor stimulation, and sensitization. Alcohol Clin Exp Res. 2014 Dec;38(12):3033-42 PubMed Central PMCID: PMC4293040 [Available on 2015-12-01] Gubner NR, Phillips TJ. Effects of nicotine on ethanol-induced locomotor sensitization: A model of neuroadaptation. Behav Brain Res. 2015 Jul 15;288:26-32. PubMed Central PMCID: PMC4442015 [Available on 2016-07-15]

STUDENT PUBLICATIONS (CONTINUED) Harkness JH, Shi X, Janowsky A, Phillips TJ. Trace Amine-Associated Receptor 1 Regulation of Methamphetamine Intake and Related Traits. Neuropsychopharmacology. 2015 Aug;40(9):2175-84. Hitchcock LN, Lattal KM. Histone-mediated epigenetics in addiction. Prog Mol Biol Transl Sci. 2014;128:51-87. Review. Iancu OD, Colville A, Darakjian P, Hitzemann R. Coexpression and cosplicing network approaches for the study of mammalian brain transcriptomes. Int Rev Neurobiol. 2014;116:73-93. Review. Iancu OD, Colville A, Oberbeck D, Darakjian P, McWeeney SK, Hitzemann R. Cosplicing network analysis of mammalian brain RNA-Seq data utilizing WGCNA and Mantel correlations. Front Genet. 2015 May 13;6:174. PubMed Central PMCID: PMC4429622. Jarvis ED, Mirarab S, Aberer AJ, Li B, Houde P, Li C, Ho SY, Faircloth BC, Nabholz B, Howard JT, Suh A, Weber CC, da Fonseca RR, Li J, Zhang F, Li H, Zhou L, Narula N, Liu L, Ganapathy G, Boussau B, Bayzid MS, Zavidovych V, Subramanian S, Gabaldón T, Capella-Gutiérrez S, Huerta-Cepas J, Rekepalli B, Munch K, Schierup M, Lindow B, Warren WC, Ray D, Green RE, Bruford MW, Zhan X, Dixon A, Li S, Li N, Huang Y, Derryberry EP, Bertelsen MF, Sheldon FH, Brumfield RT, Mello CV, Lovell PV, Wirthlin M, Schneider MP, Prosdocimi F, Samaniego JA, Vargas Velazquez AM, Alfaro-Núñez A, Campos PF, Petersen B, Sicheritz-Ponten T, Pas A, Bailey T, Scofield P, Bunce M, Lambert DM, Zhou Q, Perelman P, Driskell AC, Shapiro B, Xiong Z, Zeng Y, Liu S, Li Z, Liu B, Wu K, Xiao J, Yinqi X, Zheng Q, Zhang Y, Yang H, Wang J, Smeds L, Rheindt FE, Braun M, Fjeldsa J, Orlando L, Barker FK, Jønsson KA, Johnson W, Koepfli KP, O'Brien S, Haussler D, Ryder OA, Rahbek C, Willerslev E, Graves GR, Glenn TC, McCormack J, Burt D, Ellegren H, Alström P, Edwards SV, Stamatakis A, Mindell DP, Cracraft J, Braun EL, Warnow T, Jun W, Gilbert MT, Zhang G. Whole-genome analyses resolve early branches in the tree of life of modern birds. Science. 2014 Dec 12;346(6215):1320-31 PubMed Central PMCID: PMC4405904. Jimenez VA, Helms CM, Cornea A, Meshul CK, Grant KA. An ultrastructural analysis of the effects of ethanol self-administration on the hypothalamic paraventricular nucleus in rhesus macaques. Front Cell Neurosci. 2015 Jul 14;9:260. 2015. PubMed PMID: 26236193; PubMed Central PMCID: PMC4500925. Lovell PV, Wirthlin M, Carbone L, Warren WC, Mello CV. Response to Hron et al. Genome Biol. 2015 Aug 18;16:165. PubMed Central PMCID: PMC4539853.

STUDENT PUBLICATIONS (CONTINUED) Lovell PV, Wirthlin M, Wilhelm L, Minx P, Lazar NH, Carbone L, Warren WC, Mello CV. Conserved syntenic clusters of protein coding genes are missing in birds. Genome Biol. 2014;15(12):565. PubMed Central PMCID: PMC4290089. McClendon E, Chen K, Gong X, Sharifnia E, Hagen M, Cai V, Shaver DC, Riddle A, Dean JM, Gunn AJ, Mohr C, Kaplan JS, Rossi DJ, Kroenke CD, Hohimer AR, Back SA. Prenatal cerebral ischemia triggers dysmaturation of caudate projection neurons. Ann Neurol. 2014 Apr;75(4):508-24. PubMed Central PMCID: PMC4013245. Metten P, Iancu OD, Spence SE, Walter NA, Oberbeck D, Harrington CA, Colville A, McWeeney S, Phillips TJ, Buck KJ, Crabbe JC, Belknap JK, Hitzemann RJ. Dual-trait selection for ethanol consumption and withdrawal: genetic and transcriptional network effects. Alcohol Clin Exp Res. 2014 Dec;38(12):2915-24. PubMed Central PMCID: PMC4500109 [Available on 2015-12-01] Miranda-Dominguez O, Mills BD, Carpenter SD, Grant KA, Kroenke CD, Nigg JT, Fair DA. Connectotyping: model based fingerprinting of the functional connectome. PLoS One. 2014 Nov 11;9(11):e111048. PubMed Central PMCID: PMC4227655. Monteys AM, Spengler RM, Dufour BD, Wilson MS, Oakley CK, Sowada MJ, McBride JL, Davidson BL. Single nucleotide seed modification restores in vivo tolerability of a toxic artificial miRNA sequence in the mouse brain. Nucleic Acids Res. 2014 Dec 1;42(21):13315-27. PubMed Central PMCID: PMC4245975. Olson CR, Wirthlin M, Lovell PV, Mello CV. Proper care, husbandry, and breeding guidelines for the zebra finch, Taeniopygia guttata. Cold Spring Harb Protoc. 2014 Oct 23;2014(12):1243-8 PubMed Central PMCID: PMC4574870 [Available on 2015-12-01] Pfenning AR, Hara E, Whitney O, Rivas MV, Wang R, Roulhac PL, Howard JT, Wirthlin M, Lovell PV, Ganapathy G, Mouncastle J, Moseley MA, Thompson JW, Soderblom EJ, Iriki A, Kato M, Gilbert MT, Zhang G, Bakken T, Bongaarts A, Bernard A, Lein E, Mello CV, Hartemink AJ, Jarvis ED. Convergent transcriptional specializations in the brains of humans and song-learning birds. Science. 2014 Dec 12;346(6215):1256846. PubMed Central PMCID: PMC4385736. Pflibsen L, Stang KA, Sconce MD, Wilson VB, Hood RL, Meshul CK, Mitchell SH. Executive function deficits and glutamatergic protein alterations in a progressive 1-methyl-4-phenyl-1,2,3,6-tetrahydropyridine mouse model of Parkinson's disease. J Neurosci Res. 2015 Aug 31.

STUDENT PUBLICATIONS (CONTINUED) Pina MM, Young EA, Ryabinin AE, Cunningham CL. The bed nucleus of the stria terminalis regulates ethanol-seeking behavior in mice. Neuropharmacology. 2015 Aug 21;99:627-638. Pizzimenti CL, Lattal KM. Epigenetics and memory: causes, consequences and treatments for post-traumatic stress disorder and addiction. Genes Brain Behav. 2015 Jan;14(1):73-84 PubMed Central PMCID: PMC4526190 [Available on 2016-01-01] Ramaker MJ, Strong-Kaufman MN, Ford MM, Phillips TJ, Finn DA. Effect of nucleus accumbens shell infusions of ganaxolone or gaboxadol on ethanol consumption in mice. Psychopharmacology (Berl). 2015 Apr;232(8):1415-26. PubMed Central PMCID: PMC4412309 [Available on 2016-04-01] Shorey-Kendrick LE, Ford MM, Allen DC, Kuryatov A, Lindstrom J, Wilhelm L, Grant KA, Spindel ER. Nicotinic receptors in non-human primates: Analysis of genetic and functional conservation with humans. Neuropharmacology. 2015 Sep;96(Pt B):263-73. Review PubMed Central PMCID: PMC4486519 [Available on 2016-09-01] Smith ML, Li J, Ryabinin AE. Increased alcohol consumption in urocortin 3 knockout mice is unaffected by chronic inflammatory pain. Alcohol Alcohol. 2015 Mar;50(2):132-9. PubMed Central PMCID: PMC4327342 [Available on 2016-03-01] Stafford JM, Jarrett BR, Miranda-Dominguez O, Mills BD, Cain N, Mihalas S, Lahvis GP, Lattal KM, Mitchell SH, David SV, Fryer JD, Nigg JT, Fair DA. Large-scale topology and the default mode network in the mouse connectome. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2014 Dec 30;111(52):18745-50. PubMed Central PMCID: PMC4284535. Wang P, Eshaq RS, Meshul CK, Moore C, Hood RL, Leidenheimer NJ. Neuronal gamma-aminobutyric acid (GABA) type A receptors undergo cognate ligand chaperoning in the endoplasmic reticulum by endogenous GABA. Front Cell Neurosci. 2015 May 18;9:188 PubMed Central PMCID: PMC4435044. Wirthlin M, Lovell PV, Jarvis ED, Mello CV. Comparative genomics reveals molecular features unique to the songbird lineage. BMC Genomics. 2014 Dec 13;15:1082. PubMed Central PMCID: PMC4377847.

CONTACT US

Oregon Health & Science University Dept of Behavioral Neuroscience

3181 SW Sam Jackson Park Rd L470 Portland, OR 97239-3098

(503) 494-8464 www.ohsu.edu/behn

UPDATES

Joshua Kaplan (PhD 2015) was the graduate student speaker at the 2015 OHSU Commencement Ceremony on June 5, 2015. Josh is now working in Bill Catterall’s lab at the University of Washington.

Nathan Rustay (PhD 2004) and Janel Boyce-Rustay (PhD 2003) join daughters, Lorelei (7, green hair) and Delaney (4), at San Francisco Botanic Garden (Golden Gate State Park). The family is enjoying their move to California, especially so in the “winter”. The girls are fitting in well to the California scene, as evidenced by the changing hair color (last time it was very pink). Janel (at Genetech) and Nate (at Impax Laboratories) have both been able to stay somewhat neuroscience-focused and their OHSU training has proved invaluable.

UPDATES (CONTINUED)

Emily Eastwood (PhD 2015) graduated in April, then married Kevin Goodenough on August 8, 2015. At the event, some of our graduates got together for a reunion photo. Pictured are: Joshua Kaplan (PhD 2015), Megan Herting (PhD 2015), Anita Cservenka (PhD 2013), Travis Moschak (PhD 2014), Antony Abraham (PhD 2014), Lauren Kruse (PhD 2015), Marcia Ramaker (PhD 2014), Amanda Barkley-Levenson (PhD 2015), and Emily! Brian Piper (Postdoc 2008-11) started a new position with the Neuroscience Program at Bowdoin College in Brunswick, Maine. He published a new paper – part science, part investigative journalism Piper BJ, Telku MT, Lambert DA (2015) A quantitative analysis of undisclosed conflicts of interest in pharmacology textbooks. PLoS One, 2015, 10(7) Megan Tipps (Postdoc 2011-14) and Jon Raybuck (Postdoc 2009-14) are engaged and will be married in February 2016.

UPDATES (CONTINUED) Joshua Morse’s (Administrative Manager, Psychiatry) dog, Ruby

Rebecca Hammond’s (PhD 2005) company, Sage Therapeutics, went public this year. They celebrated the IPO at the bell ringing ceremony at NASDAQ in Times Square. Rebecca also had another addition to the family. William Brennan Stark Kuzmickas was born November 4, 2014 and joins big sister, Freya.

UPDATES (CONTINUED) Shelly Dickinson (PhD 1996) is starting her last year as chair of the Psych department at St. Olaf College (the honor is rotated). She is still loving her job and still trying to send students to OHSU for graduate school. Daughter, Jillian, will be in 5th grade. Lincoln is starting kindergarten. Begging for a dog has been a major activity, as they don’t think two cats, a dwarf hamster, a painted turtle, a hermit crab, and five fish are enough pets! Will mom & dad give in? Will the kids find out mom secretly has wanted a dog for many years and already has a name picked out? Stay tuned!

Former Fair lab member, Elizabeth Hawkey, is starting PhD graduate school at Washington University in St. Louis. She received a very prestigious Graduate Research Fellowship from the National Science Foundation. Assistant Professor, Miranda Lim, welcomed daughter, Kuzma, on September 14, 2014 (6 lbs 2oz, 19 in). She joins big brother, Leo (3).

UPDATES (CONTINUED) Trish Pruis (PhD 2010) was promoted to Alliance Manager at OHSU’s Office of Technology Transfer & Business Development. She went to Argentina and Brazil last Fall with BEHN graduate student, Monique Smith. Trish and her boyfriend also hiked the entire Forest Park Wildwood Trail (30.25 miles) in one day in June 2015.

Lance Johnson (Postdoc, Raber lab) received a poster presentation award at the 2015 NeuroFutures Conference. Lance’s son, Walker (2), helped dad in the lab recently.

Gwendolyn McGinnis (Medical student, Raber lab) received an OHSU Faculty Senate award in July 2015. Wendy first joined the Raber lab as a Saturday Academy student about 8 years ago. She also received a Collin Medical Trust award ($30,000) from the OHSU Foundation.

UPDATES (CONTINUED)

Scott Philibin (Postdoc, Crabbe lab, 2006-09) became a Medical Science Liaison at Lundbeck in May 2015. Here he is in Colorado, somewhere between Durango and Ouray.

BEHN reunion in Uppsala, Sweden at the 2015 IBANGS meeting: Angela Ozburn (Instructor), Igor Ponomarev (PhD 2002), William Giardino (PhD 2013), and Stephen Boehm (PhD 2002). Tunde Akinyeke (Postdoc, Raber lab) received a 2015 NIDA Diversity Scholar Travel Award to participate in the Annual Society for Neuroscience meeting in Chicago, IL.

UPDATES (CONTINUED) Abraham Palmer (Postdoc, Phillips lab, 1999-2002) was promoted to Professor in the Department of Human Genetics at University of Chicago (July 2015). Abe is moving to University of California San Diego in January 2016 where he will be Professor in the Department of Psychiatry. Recent BEHN graduate, Amanda Barkley-Levenson will be joining him at UCSD as a postdoc. His NIDA P50 center grant was funded from 2014-2019 (www.ratgenes.org). He hosted a meeting called “Rat genetics and genomics for psychiatric disorders and addiction” and is doing a study on impulsivity/delay discounting in collaboration with 23andMe. In July 2015, he went backpacking in the Three Sisters Wilderness with 6 year old daughter, Ariela.

Christina Gremel (PhD 2008), her husband Nicholas Oesch (OHSU NGP grad), and Hans (a lively 3 year old) welcomed kid #2 last August, a baby girl that they named Rhye. They have since moved the whole family cross country from DC to San Diego, after accepting positions at UC San Diego and are busy setting up their own laboratories in the Department of Psychology and the Neuroscience Graduate Program.

UPDATES (CONTINUED) Allison Anacker (PhD 2012) started a new job as Postdoctoral Research Fellow in the Department of Psychiatry at Columbia University in New York, NY. She also won the BEHN Graduate Student Paper of the Year award. Skyla M. Herod (PhD 2009), associate professor at Azusa Pacific U in Los Angeles, CA, was recently named a Fulbright Scholar for the 2015-16 academic year. In January, she and her family will move to Budapest, Hungary for six months to teach at Eötvös Loránd University (ELTE) and to conduct research at the Hungarian Academy of Sciences. Skyla will be developing a neuroscience program of study in the graduate Cognitive Psychology department at ELTE, and will be analyzing the neuroendocrine profile in the hair of service animals. Working with one of the foremost experts in behavioral and physiological traits of service dogs, this research will provide novel Biobehavioral information to agencies worldwide that place service animals with those in need. Skyla and her husband, Benji, daughter Riley (9), and sons Finian (6) and Kaelan (3) invite you all to come visit them if you plan on attending the International Behavioral Neuroscience Society (IBNS) meeting in Budapest in June!

Great Dissertation Seminar Flyer? Or GreatEST Dissertation Seminar Flyer?

Or was is it this one?

OHSU Students Engage The Community: Teaching, Collaborating, and Learning through nwnoggin.org…

Behavioral Neuroscience students happily left the hill to bring their skills and talents, and extensive knowledge of the brain and behavior to undergraduates, K-12 students, and members of the public throughout the past year.

Christie Pizzimenti, Vanessa Jimenez, and Brian Mills developed and delivered their own month-long mini-courses for undergraduates at Portland State University and Washington State University by enrolling in BEHN 650, a teaching practicum class. They acquired useful college course planning and teaching experience, while their undergraduates benefited tremendously by working directly with graduates pursuing cutting edge, federally funded research on learning and memory, imaging, alcohol, and stress.

NWNOGGIN.ORG Still more graduate students, including John Harkness and Alfredo Zúñiga, joined additional students from WSUV, PSU, and the Pacific Northwest College of Art for outreach work at many local schools and venues, including Jefferson High School, McCoy Academy, Skyview High School, OHSU, the Portland Art Museum, and Portland’s downtown Newmark Theater.

In addition, Monique Smith, Emily Eastwood, Sam Carpenter (from Damien Fair’s lab), Christie Pizzimenti, and Amanda Barkley-Levenson entertained and informed large crowds with art-infused collaborative presentations they developed along with art students from PNCA at Velo Cult, a popular bike shop/event space/pub in Northeast Portland! The public learned about exciting work underway at OHSU Behavioral Neuroscience on everything from pain relief and memory, to imaging techniques and the abuse of methamphetamine...

NWNOGGIN.ORG

And this summer our graduates collaborated with fellow students from multiple area institutions to design and deliver three week arts-integrated programs for academic priority K-12 students in Portland and Vancouver! Christie Pizzimenti, Vanessa Jimenez, Brian Mills and Sam Carpenter helped mentor undergraduates and teach young people in our community about their brains. Several of their accomplished undergraduate collaborators, including Michael Miller, Lindsay Miller, Allie Clark, Alex Voigt, Elizabeth Olson and Rosalie Lee, are now also working in labs at OHSU...

Come join us! There are exciting opportunities this year for public education and outreach. Improve your teaching and community engagement skills, and have great fun doing it, too. Learn more at: http://nwnoggin.org/get-involved/oregon-health-science-university/

ALEX COLVILLE, PH.D. CANDIDATE (1987-2015)

It was with great sadness that we learned Alexandre “Alex” Colville died on August 5, 2015. Alex was a doctoral candidate in Robert Hitzemann’s lab. He was 28 years old. He is survived by his mother, Brenda McCabe; father, Warren T. Colville; brothers Dan, Warren, and James; and sisters Caryn, Waverly, and Porscha. Faculty members, students, staff, and friends joined to celebrate Alex’s life at a gathering on August 27th. Alex’s mother, Brenda, was in attendance and we all had the distinct pleasure of meeting her and listening to her beautiful words about her brilliant, creative, and incredible son.

To further memorialize Alex’s contributions to biomedical research, Behavioral Neuroscience will host a seminar highlighting Alex’s research later this year. His dissertation project explored the effect of ethanol preference selection on gene and neuronal network structure. Alex joined Behavioral Neuroscience in 2010 and was getting ready to graduate later this year. He had five publications and was working on more which will be published by the Hitzemann lab later this year. He received several travel awards from the Research Society on Alcoholism and the National Institute of General Medicine Sciences. Alex loved computers, Phish, and butterflies. He was looking forward to a post-graduation position in data analytics. Our thoughts and best wishes go out to Dominique Eghlidi and Alex’s family.