University Scholar Shares Research at the Society for Neuroscience

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Austin Pothikamjorn (COL ’25) recently attended the Society for Neuroscience Annual Meeting with support from the University Scholars program and the 2024 Trainee Professional Development Award from the Society for Neuroscience.

In early October, I had the incredible opportunity to attend the Society for Neuroscience (SfN) Annual Meeting in Chicago. I presented a poster about my animal model research on GLP-1R agonists, a popular class of obesity/weight loss drugs such as Ozempic and Wegovy, and how they might be repurposed to treat substance use disorders. This research presentation was the culmination of many hours in the lab, back-and-forth discussions with my PI, Dr. Heath Schmidt, and the thrill of generating new data every day. 

During my presentation, I spoke with many graduate students, postdocs, and PIs about my research and received many insightful comments and suggestions. One memorable interaction was with Dr. Susanna Molas from the University of Colorado Boulder. Dr. Molas studies the same brain region that my graduate student mentor, Rae Herman, and I research, and we referenced a key paper of Molas’s during our project planning.

Additionally, I met a graduate student investigating dopamine sensors, which was at the core of my research project. She researched the electrical properties of these sensors, and compared different types in the study she presented. Her findings differed from mine for a particular sensor, as I utilized the GRAB_DA1h sensor in my experiment while she focused on GRAB_DA2, so it was great to talk with her and discuss the specific nuances of our projects, which may have been the source of the discrepancies. These interactions underscored how interconnected the research world is and the opportunities these international conferences provide to interact with other scholars in my field.

Attending SfN 2024 represented another pivotal milestone in my academic career, as it deepened my understanding of current trends in neuroscience and connected me with other researchers whose insights I will incorporate into my project. Moving forward, I hope to be a point of contact for other UScholars interested in presenting their work at external conferences. This experience has reinforced my desire to continue neuroscience research in medical school, and I am excited to attend similar events in the future.

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