Promoting Scientific Exchange and Student Training Through Scientific Meetings; Insights from a Joint Virtual Undergraduate Neuroscience Conference During the COVID-19 Pandemic.

Participation in scientific conferences is a fundamental part of neuroscience and student training. Many conference opportunities have been cancelled, limited, or changed in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. This paper is a conference report from a joint virtual 2021 meeting of two regional undergraduate neuroscience conferences, the Midwest/Great Lakes Undergraduate Research Symposium in Neuroscience (mGluRs) and the Midwest Regional Neuroscience Conference (MidBrains).

Behavioral plasticity: Role of neuropeptides in shaping feeding responses.

Behavioral plasticity refers to changes occurring due to external influences on an organism, including adaptation, learning, memory and enduring influences from early life experience. There are 2 types of behavioral plasticity: "developmental", which refers to gene/environment interactions affecting a phenotype, and "activational" which refers to innate physiology and can involve structural physiological changes of the body. In this review, we focus on feeding behavior, and studies involving neuropeptides that influence behavioral plasticity - primarily opioids, orexin, neuropeptide Y, and oxytocin.

Chronic Intermittent Sucrose Consumption Facilitates the Ability to Discriminate Opioid Receptor Blockade with Naltrexone in Rats.

The opioid antagonist naltrexone (NTX) decreases intake of preferred diets in rats at very low doses relative to doses needed to decrease intake of "bland" laboratory chow. In the absence of an opioid agonist, NTX is not discriminable using operant techniques. In the current study, we found that rats given intermittent access to a 25% sucrose solution learned to discriminate between various naltrexone doses and saline.

The integrated stress response contributes to tRNA synthetase-associated peripheral neuropathy.

Dominant mutations in ubiquitously expressed transfer RNA (tRNA) synthetase genes cause axonal peripheral neuropathy, accounting for at least six forms of Charcot-Marie-Tooth (CMT) disease. Genetic evidence in mouse and models suggests a gain-of-function mechanism. In this study, we used in vivo, cell type–specific transcriptional and translational profiling to show that mutant tRNA synthetases activate the integrated stress response (ISR) through the sensor kinase GCN2 (general control nonderepressible 2).

Treatment and outcomes of nasopharyngeal carcinoma in a unique non-endemic population.

Objective: Nasopharyngeal carcinoma (NPC) is common in Southeast Asia. Due to the influx of immigrants from this region, the incidence in British Columbia is increasing. Current literature from non-endemic populations encompasses heterogeneous cohorts.