UMass Neurosciences Director, Paul Katz received a $3.5 Million grant from the NIH Brain Initiative to lead a team of researchers from four universities to study the brain of a nudibranch. The grant is entitled “A 5-dimensional connectomics approach to the neural basis of behavior” because it examines the brain 3 dimensions of space and 2 dimensions of time: real time and developmental time. Continue reading
Dr. Sarah Pallas recently accepted a position to join the Biology Department and the Neuroscience and Behavior graduate program at UMass. Dr. Pallas was previously at Georgia State University. Her research is aimed at understanding the cellular and molecular mechanisms underlying development and plasticity of sensory pathways in the brain. Dr. Pallas is the 6th recent hire into the growing Neurosciences community at UMass.
Here are some of the latest neuroscience publications to appear in the National Center for Biotechnology Information (NCBI) at the U.S. National Library of Medicine (NLM).This is the result of a search for Search: “university of Massachusetts” AND Amherst AND neuroscience on Dec 1, 2018. Continue reading
The Neuroscience and Behavior Graduate Program welcomes five new Assistant Professors. They epitomize the diversity of backgrounds and approaches in the Neurosciences. Two of the faculty members are in Biology, one in Psychological Brain Sciences, one in Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, and one in Communication Disorders. Each of them is recruiting PhD students for the coming year.
–Paul S. Katz
Director of Neurosciences
The UMass Week of Memory and Forgetting has provided me with fresh ideas about the nature of memory and the nature of society itself. It was fitting to begin the week with a reception at the Institute of Holocaust, Genocide, and Memory Studies that featured an address from the Chancellor, who very movingly reflected on the recent mass shooting at a synagogue in Pittsburgh, surrounded by pictures of atrocities committed by the Nazis. The Provost reflected on Psalm 137, popularly known through the reggae song, “By the Rivers of Babylon”, and the meaning of how collective memory affects us and how we, in turn, change the meaning of the memory over time. Each of the speakers brought a unique viewpoint on memory and its relevance for our lives. Continue reading
Here are some of the latest neuroscience publications to appear in the National Center for Biotechnology Information (NCBI) at the U.S. National Library of Medicine (NLM).This is the result of a search for Search: “university of Massachusetts” AND Amherst AND neuroscience on Nov 5, 2018. Continue reading
Students and faculty built Ofrendas for Dia de los Muertos as part of the UMass Week of Memory and Forgetting. Participants came from several Departments.
The winning Ofrenda was constructed by graduate students in the Spanish and Portuguese Studies and was dedicated to female surrealist painters. It is located on the 4th floor of Herter Hall
Construction has begun on the 2nd floor of Morrill IV North to accommodate several neuroscience laboratories and faculty offices. This will create a new hub of neuroscience on campus and bring researchers closer together with other researchers in Morrill and the Life Science Laboratory. The lab space is designed in an open configuration with researchers sharing a series of research benches and having dedicated side rooms. Student desks are located at the ends of the lab. Hall ways are brightly colored. There will be a shared conference room, break room and computational facility. The space is slated to be completed Fall of 2019.
Several UMass faculty, students, and post-docs will be presenting their research at the Annual Society for Neuroscience meeting, which will be held in San Diego Nov 3- 7. Here is the complete listing. Also, the Neuroscience and Behavior Graduate Program will have a booth this year at the Graduate Program fair at SfN.
A team of UMass scientists has been awarded a four-year, $953,300 grant from the National Science Foundation (NSF) to develop miniature, implantable hardware that can record complex brain activity in animals and analyze it in real time. This new technical capability will allow the researchers to trace the origin of complex brain activity down to cellular levels, they say.
