Thesis Defense

Lexa Basford Thesis Defense       BSC graduate student Lexa Basford presented her doctoral thesis defense, on “Neural Mechanisms of Sequence Learning,” Wednesday, July 2, on the University of Minnesota campus. Upon subsequent review by her advisor James Ashe and the thesis defense review team, Lexa will receive her neuroscience doctorate from the University of Minnesota.

 Returning

     University of Minnesota Medical School student Alex Merkle,  returns to the BSC this summer, to assist on research studies while on break from his studies. Previously, Alex spent three years working as a research assistant in Dr. Georgopoulos’ lab at the Center.  In the fall he will return to the university to begin his second year of medical school.

Waechter BSC Visit

     BSC collaborator Tobias Waechter, M.D., returned to the BSC in June to continue his research work with James Ashe's team on reinforcement learning in healthy subjects and movement execution in Parkinson’s patients.  He has since returned to his native Germany to continue his neurology residency and research projects at the Hertie Institute and Department of Neurology at the University of Tuebingen.

   Back in clinic in Tuebingen, Dr. Waechter attends to patients with Parkinson’s disease and other movement disorders.  His research there involves the neural basis of tremor and reinforcement learning in stroke patients.

Martin Bares BSC Collaboration Continues Brain Sciences Center colleague Martin Bares returned to the U.S., this spring to continue research collaborations with James Ashe’s team in Minneapolis and attend the annul American Association of Neurology meeting in Chicago.  The collaboration with Dr. Ashe’s team is based on an fMRI study of the cerebellum that deals with timing. 

     During his visit, Dr. Bares met with Dr. Ashe and Tao Liu to finish work on this fMRI study.  Dr. Bares has since returned to his homeland of Czech Repuplic where he works as a physician and associate professor of neurology at Masaryk University in Brno, CR. Dr. Bares works within Masaryk’s 1st Department of Neurology where his duties include teaching in clinic and attending to patients with movement disorders and dementias. In addition, his research there continues with projects involving motor control using fMRI, neurophysiology and transcranial magnetic stimulation.

     Caitlin Race returns to the  Brain Sciences Center as a summer intern. During her time at the BSC this summer, Caitlin will assist May Tan in the analysis of MEG data. Caitlin recently completed her freshman year at the University of Minnesota. She is originally from Atlanta, but grew up in the St. Paul suburb of Eagan, MN.

University of Wisconsin undergrad David Rubins is back for a fourth-straight summer internship to assist Elissaios Karageorgiou in the data analysis of MEG studies.   In addition, David will work with David Crowe on a new brain study.   This fall he will return for his senior year at the UW-Madison, where he majors in neuroscience and plans to attend medical school. David is originally from the Minneapolis suburb of St. Louis Park, Minnesota

 Arrivals

BSC Observer Reem Daloul       Medical student Reem Daloul is visiting the BSC this summer while on break from Damascus University Medical School in Damascus, Syria.  While in Minneapolis, Reem will observe and assist with research projects at the Center.  Upon graduation from medical school in 2009, she plans to pursue a medical residency in the U.S.  Her career interests include cardiology and neurology.

 Departures

Blake Daley leaves for masters degree      Research assistant Blake G. Daley is leaving the BSC to pursue a master’s degree in medical neuroscience at the University of Minnesota. Blake plans to take an accelerated track for his master’s program and complete his studies within a year. Upon completion of his MS, Blake hopes to start medical school in the fall of 2009. He came to the BSC in May 2006, and while there worked in Dr. Georgopoulos’s lab on studies of neural mechanisms of motor control and cognitive processes. His last day at the Center is June 30.

Christopoulos Medtronic Internship       BSC computer scientist/graduate student Vasileios Christopoulos will work at Medtronic, Inc., this summer as part of an internship in the company's neuromodulation division. According to Christopoulos, “Our group is involved with next-generation sensing concepts for neuromodulation therapies including spinal cord stimulation, targeted drug delivery, deep brain stimulation (DBS) and stimulation of the lower pelvic nerves for urinary pathologies.  We are actively pursuing initiatives aimed at sensing from the brain, lower pelvic region and overall body movement/kinematics as biomarkers for improving delivery of those therapies”      Upon the completion of his internship in mid-August, Christopoulos will return to the BSC and University of Minnesota where he will resume his work on his doctorate in computer science.

 Publications

Christova et al  Paper in Experimental Brain Research

     The BSC research team of Peka Christova Savayan, Apostolos Georgopoulos, Scott Lewis and George Tagaris, along with University of Minnesota Center for Magnetic Resonance Research director Kamil Ugurbil, has a paper published in the recent (May 14, 2008) online edition of the journal Experimental Brain Research. “A voxel-by-voxel parametric fMRI study of motor mental rotation: Hemispheric specialization and gender differences in neural processing efficiency,” examines the differences in how men and women process information in their brains.

Alonso Paper Published in Journal

     BSC graduate assistant Aurelio Alonso is co-author of a paper published in the May 2008 edition of the journal of Oral Maxillofacial Surgery Clinics of North America. The article entitled, "Neurovascular pains: implications of migraine for the oral and maxillofacial surgeon" was co-authored by Alonso and University of Minnesota School of Dentistry colleagues.      In addition, Alonso recently presented a poster related to this doctoral thesis project entitled, "Cortical involvement in patients with orofacial pain as revealed by magnetoencephalography (MEG)",  at the American Academy of Orofacial Pain conference in Los Angeles this April. The poster presentation encompasses the work of Alonso and BSC team members Elissaios Karageorgiou, Ioannis G. Koutlas, Arthur C. Leuthold, Scott Lewis and Apostolos P. Georgopoulos.