NSF Summer REU

Program poster

Program website

Apply here (deadline: March 11)

This Research Experience for Undergraduates (REU) Site award, funded by the National Science Foundation, to The College of Wooster, Wooster, OH, Ohio Wesleyan University, Delaware, OH, Kenyon College, Gambier, OH, and Earlham College, Richmond, IN will support 16 students for 9 weeks during the summers of 2016-2018. Undergraduate participants will receive a stipend of $4,725 in addition to housing, meal and travel allowances.

This REU unites the successful neuroscience undergraduate research programs of four predominately undergraduate institutions in Northern Ohio and Eastern Indiana. The REU consists of four research teams, one per partner institution, each with four students and two faculty mentors for a nine-week summer REU. Each group will focus on a separate research project from a faculty mentor’s area of expertise. Participants will work on challenging, authentic research questions and learn methods, skills and content to succeed in their research endeavors at their home institutions. In addition, during biweekly consortium meetings, participants will learn methods, skills and content on research methods being used at the partner institutions.

Summer research projects for 2016:

Faculty Mentor: Surendra Ambegaokar, PhD
Location: Ohio Wesleyan University, Delaware, OH

The Ambegaokar lab explores how genes regulate two important neuronal cellular processes– RNA translation and autophagy in Drosophila. We are investigating a mechanism (which undergraduates were involved in discovering) of negative feedback between microRNA-7 and a RNA-binding protein, hnRNP K, in co-regulating important signaling cascades in neurons, e.g. insulin receptor pathway, and the epidermal growth factor receptor pathway. Also of interest is the common “background” gene in Drosophila – white – which may induce autophagy in addition to providing pigmentation to eyes. All three genes also alter neurodegenerative phenotypes in Drosophila, and participants could test if these genes also affect neuronal susceptibility to infection by the neuron-specific Sigma virus, which only infects insects. Sigma virus infection also induces a unique behavioral response that causes paralysis when exposed to high doses of carbon dioxide (CO2) (L’Heritier, 1948). Given the importance of CO2 detection in fruit flies, my lab is using Sigma virus and this unique phenotype to better elucidate the CO2 sensory pathway in Drosophila. REU participants will integrate several techniques to approach these questions, including subcloning of genes, RNA immunoprecipitation, RT-qPCR, Western blots, transfection of human cell lines (e.g. human embryonic kidney cells, or SH-SY5Y glioblastoma cells), stereoscope & scanning electron microscope imaging of “rough” eyes and other neural-related morphology, immunofluorescent microscopy, and simple behavioral assays to measure motor function in flies. This research will train participants in many fundamental concepts and several techniques employed in molecular neuroscience.

Faculty Mentor: Kira Bailey, PhD
Location: Ohio Wesleyan University, Delaware, OH

The Bailey lab is testing the hypothesis that action video games (AVGs) can be used to modify the neural correlates of cognitive control. The significance of this work lies in the implication that the skills acquired in an AVG might be transferred to other contexts (Boot et al., 2011; Green et al., 2009) which is in contrast to findings from a wealth of training paradigms wherein improvements in performance transfer very narrowly (to highly similar tasks) or not at all. Establishing a causal relationship between AVGs and behavioral and neural changes requires carefully designed training studies. The proposed research seeks to conduct a rigorous training study to address the methodological shortcomings in previous work and provide a more thorough investigation of video game effects on executive functioning and perceptual ability, using a combined behavioral and psychophysiological approach with latent variables. REU participants will use event-related brain potentials to measure the neural correlates of cognitive control measured in one or more of several tasks (e.g., Stroop, Flanker, AX-CPT) they choose to associate with their research question before and after participants undergo 20 hours of AVG training.

Faculty Mentor: Andrew Engell, PhD
Location: Kenyon College, Gambier, OH

The Engell lab uses electroencephalogram (EEG), event-related potentials (ERPs), and behavioral paradigms to investigate the “social brain”: those brain areas that support perception of socially relevant stimuli such as emotional face expressions, gaze shifts, biological motion, and underlying social competencies such as the inference of another’s goals and intentions. Face perception, a highly developed visual skill vital to typical social processing, represents an ideal model system for advancing our understanding of the social brain. The extremely complex processes that support face perception are belied by the speed and ease with which we detect and identify faces, read facial expressions, interpret gaze direction, etc. The Engell lab will investigate the nature and timing of the neural processes that make such complex tasks feel so effortless. Interestingly, brain regions thought to be critical for face processing are co-localized with regions thought to be critical for other social competencies such as the perception of bodies (Weiner & Grill-Spector, 2013; Engell and McCarthy 2014) and biological motion (Bonda et al., 1996; Engell & McCarthy 2013). The lab is thus also interested in understanding the extent of functional overlap of these systems. REU participants would be trained in the acquisition and analysis of scalp–recorded EEG and ERPs to investigate some combination of these issues.

Faculty Mentor: Grit Herzmann, PhD
Location: The College of Wooster, Wooster, OH

The Herzmann lab investigates the neural mechanisms of how humans are able to perceive faces, memorize visual material, and remember this material later on. The research focuses especially on cases of superior performance as found in experts like birders or car experts (Herzmann & Curran, 2011; Tanaka & Curran, 2001). These people, because of extensive perceptual learning, are better able to perceive and memorize stimuli of their expertise (Bukach et al., 2006). Understanding how perception and memory is improved in these cases can be translated into training programs for people suffering from learning disabilities or dementia. REU participants will use event-related brain potentials to measure brain activation while participants perceive, memorize, and recognize faces. Participants will be involved in study design, stimulus choice and preparation, data collection, data analysis, and literature review. Participants will be able to experience the whole experimental process of human event-related potential research from setup to write up.

Faculty Mentor: Seth Kelly, PhD
Location: The College of Wooster, Wooster, OH

The Kelly lab aims to better understand the control of gene expression during nervous system development by focusing on how a family of RNA binding proteins regulates gene expression during axonal pathfinding and overall nervous system functioning. Mutations in ZC3H14, one member of this family, have been identified in a small number of intellectually disabled human patients. We began to investigate the function of the evolutionarily conserved Drosophila homolog of ZC3H14, called Nab2 that appears to be required for axon pathfinding in the fly CNS (Kelly, 2015). Projects in the lab will use immunofluorescence and other molecular techniques to further characterize pathfinding defects observed in Nab2 mutants and other pathfinding mutants in the lab. As a corollary to these projects, our lab is also interested in understanding how defects in pathfinding (in several different fly mutant strains) are related to changes in fly behaviors such as learning and memory, sleep, and circadian rhythm. In sum, these experiments should provide REU participants with strong training in the fields of neuroscience, cell biology, and genetics.

Faculty Mentor: Hewlet G. McFarlane, PhD
Location: Kenyon College, Gambier OH

The McFarlane lab investigates behaviors in mouse models of mental illnesses and correlates these to the brain chemistry of the subjects. Most of the work is done in the BTBR T-tf/J mouse, an excellent model for autism (McFarlane et al., 2008). Work ongoing in our laboratory suggests that in addition to the behaviors observed that model Autism spectrum disorder symptoms, these mice are interesting in a variety of additional ways. For example, BTBR mice are more aggressive than controls. This behavioral finding needs to be further investigated given that some reports suggest low levels of aggression in this strain (Silverman et al, 2010) while others suggest otherwise (Pobbe et al., 2010). A wide variety of behaviors are assessed (motor, cognition, emotional); brain chemistry is assessed using high performance liquid chromatography with electrochemical detection (HPLC-ED). REU participants could expand on this ongoing work using a behavioral pharmacological approach. Participants could assess baseline aggression using a resident-intruder paradigm and attempt to modulate the behaviors using a variety of drugs that are active in the central nervous system. Depending upon their interest, they could also further pursue the relevance of different neurotransmitters in production of autism-like behaviors.

Faculty Mentor: Beth Mechlin, PhD
Location: Earlham College, Richmond, IN

Please note that this research position will run on a different timeframe: from May 9 – July 1. Please be sure you can commit to the entire 9 weeks before choosing this research position.

The Mechlin lab examines the relationships between stress and health, since chronic stress can negatively impact health in a variety of ways (McEwen, 1998). Individuals belonging to minority groups (such as African Americans in the United States) experience higher levels of chronic stress than their non-minority counterparts, which is primarily due to experiences of discrimination and (in some cases) lower socioeconomic status. REU participants could compare stress responses (heart rate, blood pressure, and cortisol) and cold pain sensitivity among several groups of college students, for instance: those who have always been part of the majority group (such as non-Hispanic Whites), those who have always been part of the minority group (such as African Americans), and those who grew up as part of a majority group but are now living as part of a minority group (such as Indians who grew up in India but are currently attending college in the United States). REU participants working on this project will be involved in participant recruitment, data collection, data entry, and data analysis. They will learn how to administer psychosocial questionnaires, measure blood pressure and heart rate, collect saliva for cortisol measures, administer a social stress test, and administer a cold pain test. REU participants will have the opportunity to add measures to the protocol to test their own hypotheses (for example, a previous student added a measure of perfectionism).

Faculty Mentor: Jennifer Yates, PhD
Location: Ohio Wesleyan University, Delaware, OH

Animal models of acute spinal cord injury (SCI) have indicated that long-term outcome depends on both direct mechanical damage (in humans, this might come from a car accident or sports injury) and delayed secondary pathologic mechanisms (cellular events that happen AFTER the initial injury that make damage worse). The Yates lab investigates the role of macrophages (a subtype of inflammatory immune cells) in this secondary tissue damage and delayed loss of motor and sensory function by using the guinea pig SCI model (Yates et al., 2006 & 2014). Oxidative stress and neurotoxicity are two distinct cellular mechanisms of secondary damage, and they are currently treated with methylprednisolone (MP) and quinolinic acid (QUIN) blockade, respectively. REU participants will use surgical, behavioral, and immunohistological methods to test several potential research questions to further understand these cellular processes. Participants might test the hypothesis that treatment of acute SCI with short-term MP and long-term QUIN blockade will lead to additive effects on functional recovery and tissue preservation. Instead, they may work on a dose response measurement of the QUIN blockade or optimize the staining and quantification of QUIN in injured tissue.