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Three Lafayette neuroscience majors are conducting cutting-edge research this summer with leaders in their field through the Lafayette Alumni Research Network (LEARN), while others are collaborating with Lafayette faculty on significant research projects based on campus.
Rachel Blackman ’04 (Warwick, R.I.), Erica Saccente ’05 (East Meadow, N.Y.), and Susan Bothwell ’05 (Warminster, Pa.) are being paid for eight to ten weeks of full-time work through LEARN. Travel to their mentor’s institution and room expenses also have been covered through the program, which was established last year in part through a grant from the McCutcheon Foundation.
Blackman is being mentored by Jay M. Weiss ’62, Jenny C. Adams Professor of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at Emory University, who studies the neurochemical basis of mental illness by using animal models and examines the relationship between stress and the immune response.
“Various selectively bred strains of rats that show abnormal behavior related to different behavioral disorders such as depression have been developed in the laboratory,” he says. “These animals are studied in regard to neurophysiology, neuropharmacology, and electrophysiology. The laboratory also studies the relationship between environmental factors, particularly stress, and immune responses. Research in this area recently has concentrated on studies of how behavioral and stress factors can influence cancer development. Inbred strains of animals are also employed in these studies, with strains used having been selected for utility in examining cancer development.”
Saccente is conducting research with Peter Donovick ’61, professor of psychology at University of New York-Binghamton, who studies the cognitive and behavioral factors associated with traumatic brain injury, chronic disease, and mental illness.
“We are utilizing neuropsychological techniques to better understand cognitive/behavioral factors associated with and/or consequence of traumatic brain injury, violence, chronic diseases such as end-stage renal disease, and dementia,” he says. “Students in our laboratory are working in prisons, hospitals, and nursing homes, as well as on campus.”
Saccente is focusing on a project comparing information processing abilities of people with and without Multiple Sclerosis. Her role includes collecting and tabulating data, and writing reports.
Bothwell is conducting research with Kevin LaBar ’90, assistant professor and core faculty of the Center of Cognitive Neuroscience at Duke University, who studies the cognitive neuroscience of emotional learning and memory. His focus includes the amygdala, an almond-shaped mass of gray matter in the anterior portion of the brain’s temporal lobe, and to a lesser extent, the hippocampus, a ridge in the floor of each lateral ventricle of the brain that consists mainly of gray matter and has a central role in memory processes.
“I am interested in using functional neuroimaging, evoked potential, and neuropsychological techniques to examine how emotional stimuli are linked to memory systems in the brain,” he says. “Our initial studies have shown that the amygdala is a critical brain structure involved in mediating arousal effects on both implicit (conditioning) and explicit memory paradigms. Currently, I am extending this line of work to understand how the amygdala interacts with cortical brain regions during emotional memory tasks, and to distinguish between amygdala- and hippocampal-dependent forms of learning. Finally, I have begun to explore the relationship between emotion and attention using eye tracking measures in normal subjects and in patients with stroke or dementing disorders.”
Another neuroscience major, Erin Kenning ’05 (Gulph Mills, Pa.), is researching Turner’s syndrome, premature ovarian function, and mood in relation to thyroid function at the National Institute of Mental Health in Washington, D.C. this summer. She is working with psychologist Peter Schmidt and his two fellows, Khursheed Khine and Jamie Luff, in the behavioral endocrinology department.
Four other neuroscience majors are conducting research this summer in close collaborations with Lafayette faculty members in the departments of biology, psychology, and religion.
Jessica Merkel-Keller ’04, for example, is studying the success rates of hospital-performed cardiopulmonary resuscitation, patient and family perceptions of CPR, and physician training in CPR through research with Stephen Lammers, Helen H.P. Manson Professor of the English Bible.
A pre-medical school student with a second major in biomedical ethics, Merkel-Keller is working with hospital bio-statisticians at Lehigh Valley Hospital Center through Lafayette’s distinctive EXCEL Scholars program, in which students collaborate with faculty on research while earning a stipend. Many of the more than 160 students who participate each year go on to publish papers in scholarly journals and/or present their research at conferences.
“Our goal is to help health-care providers and families make informed decisions on whether or not to issue ‘Do Not Resuscitate’ orders,” says Merkel-Keller, who also is on duty at least once a week as an emergency medical technician with the Easton Emergency Squad. “One of the biggest issues in health care is what our realistic expectations should be of our technology.”
These summer experiences supplement opportunities for neuroscience majors to participate in cutting-edge research projects with Lafayette faculty during the school year and January interim session between semesters.
Marquis Scholar Megan Coyer ’05 (Slippery Rock, Pa.), for example, who participated in LEARN last summer, spent the spring semester documenting the courtship and mating behavior of two male and two female zebra finches as part of an EXCEL Scholars project with Wendy Hill, Rappolt Professor in Neuroscience. Named Pennsylvania’s Professor of the Year in 1999 by the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching, Hill has been the recipient of more than a dozen grants, including a 2003 James McKeen Cattell Fund Fellowship that will open up even more student opportunities for cutting-edge research with students.
“Largely because of Wendy Hill’s efforts, Lafayette College is poised to have one of the preeminent undergraduate neuroscience programs in the country,” says Julio J. Ramirez, the R. Stuart Dickson Professor of Psychology at Davidson College, with whom Hill has collaborated in national efforts to advance undergraduate neuroscience education. “Her vision of education is one that will ensure Lafayette’s students will be among the best educated in neuroscience in the nation. Her contributions in promoting excellence in neuroscience education at the national level are already being felt.”