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In This Issue...
- Pre-Meeting Message from the President
- Aging and Brain Health: IBNS Public Outreach in Boca Raton
- Hobby Much? Geocaching - Treating the World as One Big Treasure Hunt
- Trainee-Focused Events at the 2018 IBNS Meeting
- Trending Science
- Official Journals of IBNS: Neuroscience and Biobehavioral Reviews and Pharmacology, Biochemistry and Behavior
- Join IBNS on Florida's Coast in Boca Raton!
- Come Hear the Lessons "Learned from a Behavioral Neuroscience Approach to the Animal Modeling of Clinical Syndromes" at IBNS 2018!
- 2018 Awards Banquet: Miami Vice
Join us, June 27-July 2, 2018, for the IBNS 27th Annual Meeting at the Boca Raton Resort in sunny Boca Raton, Florida, USA!
For more information, please visit IBNS 2018 Annual Meeting and feel free to contact the IBNS Central Office with any questions.
Pre-Meeting Message from the President
It is just a month until the 27th Annual Meeting of the International Behavioral Neuroscience Society begins in beautiful Boca Raton, Florida. The program (see program), carefully crafted by our program committee chaired by Elena Choleris and co-chaired by Farida Sohrabji, is larger than ever before: it includes 3 simultaneous symposia for a total of 28 symposia, along with four other oral sessions, including the Travel Award Blitz featuring the best of our young IBNS researchers, and two evening poster sessions.
As always, each day starts with a plenary lecture: our four distinguished keynote speakers this year are Tracy Bale, Jill Becker, Gregory Quirk and Cheryl Sisk. During the midday break from symposia, we have three seminars planned: on Thursday is the Publishing Seminar, sponsored by Elsevier; on Friday is the Behavioral Workshop, exploring behavioral methods using zebrafish, sponsored by Noldus; and on Saturday is the “Meet the Professionals” event for trainees. The “Meet the Professionals” event for trainees has been a longstanding and successful networking event. I am still in touch with many of the trainees that I met at these events (going back at least ten years now), and this is the sort of place where you can find a graduate or postdoctoral position.
As always, the meeting starts off with the Welcome Reception just after the Student Social. The rest of the first day is free for tours if you are arriving early. The first full day concludes with talks by the winners of the Young Investigator and the Career Achievement Awards. The meeting will conclude with our traditional banquet, the theme of the banquet this year is “Miami Vice” (e.g. 80’s attire) so plan ahead and dig out those white suits, skinny ties, and bring lots of hair spray!
F. Scott Hall, PhD
IBNS President
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Aging and Brain Health: IBNS Public Outreach in Boca Raton
by Cindy Barha, PhD
IBNS Council Student Representative
Postdoctoral Research Fellow
University of British Columibia, Vancouver, BC
Boca Raton has been included on several lists of the best places to retire in the U.S. In fact,  approximately 25% of the population of Boca is over the age of 65! So, this year's IBNS public outreach will involve providing local senior centers and senior (independent and assisted) living communities with copies of the Otago Exercise Program. This is a home-based, individually tailored strength and balance retraining program, which has been shown to reduce falls by over 35% and improve cognitive functioning in several randomized controlled trials with older adults.
Should you have any questions, feel free to send an email ([email protected]) or come chat at the meeting in Boca Raton!
References
Campbell AJ, Robertson MC, Gardner MM, Norton RN, Buchner DM. Falls prevention over 2 years: a randomized controlled trial in women 80 years and older. Age Ageing. 1999 Oct;28(6):513-8.
Campbell AJ, Robertson MC, Gardner MM, Norton RN, Buchner DM. Psychotropic medication withdrawal and a home-based exercise program to prevent falls: a randomized, controlled trial. J Am Geriatr Soc. 1999 Jul;47(7):850-3.
Robertson MC, Devlin N, Gardner MM, Campbell AJ. Effectiveness and economic evaluation of a nurse delivered home exercise programme to prevent falls. 1: Randomised controlled trial. BMJ. 2001 Mar 24;322(7288):697-701.
Liu-Ambrose T, Donaldson MG, Ahamed Y, Graf P, Cook WL, Close J, Lord SR, Khan KM. Otago home-based strength and balance retraining improves executive functioning in older fallers: a randomized controlled trial. J Am Geriatr Soc. 2008 Oct;56(10):1821-30.
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Hobby Much?
Geocaching - Treating the World as One Big Treasure Hunt
by Christina Ragan, PhD
Assistant Professor, Department of Psychology
Purdue University Northwest, Westville, IN, USA
One day, in the middle of May when I was a Postdoctoral Fellow at Michigan State University, I decided I needed to find a new outdoor activity. The weather was finally warm and April showers seemed to have subsided, so I asked an outdoorsy friend from home for some ideas of what to do. After turning down his suggestions like rock climbing (too scary!) and parkour (too…not my style but good for you if you’re into it!), I decided to try out geocaching.
For those of you who are not familiar with it, geocaching is like treating the world as one big treasure hunt. When it first started, only people who had access to a personal Global Positioning System (GPS) could have all the fun. According to the Geocaching Headquarters, the first official geocache was a black plastic bucket filled with software, videos, books, money, a can of beans, and a slingshot that was set up by Dave Ulmer on May 3, 2000 in Oregon at 45°17.460′N 122°24.800′W Unfortunately, that geocache met its demise in an unfortunate lawn mower incident and had to be replaced.
Now, anyone with a smartphone and the free Geocaching app can get in on the fun. Geocaching involves "the hider" hiding something as large as a military ammunition box with trinkets inside or something as small as the size of an Altoid mint. At the very least, a geocache needs a scroll of paper in it so you can see all the previous geocachers who found it. The hider then shares the GPS coordinates on a site like www.geocaching.com. Geocachers can then seek it out with hints and clues leading them to the location along with the GPS coordinates. Sometimes a geocache is just a clue to another geocache, so one could spend hours searching for a series of geocaches related to each other.
When I downloaded the geocaching app, I quickly became immersed in it and had a whole new outlook about the outdoors. Is there something under that bench? What about that flower pot? Oh, I bet it’s hanging from that tree! Soon, I was corralling lab mates and other friends in the Neuroscience program to go hunting for geocaches with me.
Here are a few rules about geocaching:
- All geocaches must be publicly accessible, so no hiding any in your neighbor’s backyard or inside the lab!
- People who are not in-the-know are called “muggles.” Some geocaches are hidden in heavily populated areas, so watch out for muggles!
- To minimize harm, geocaches should only be placed in safe areas. Some terrain may be more challenging than others but shouldn’t put anyone in danger.
- Be respectful of the land. Just like the Scouts say, “Leave a geocache better than you found it.” Or something like that.
- Bring a pencil. You’ll want your legacy to live on in the log for all to know.
Happy hunting!
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Looking for a new employment opportunity or struggling to find the right candidate? Meet the IBNS Career Center!
One of the biggest challenges for any international scientific society is to provide quality and informative support to its members, whether it is for a new employment opportunity or for finding the right candidate for a new position you opened. The IBNS excels in this area through its online Career Center portal (http://jobs.ibnsconnect.org) through which it provides the right tools for both, job seekers and employers.
The IBNS Career Center portal offers all the standard operational features, such as a thorough search engine by keyword and location, as well as extra services such as a free review of your resume for feedback and a job-posting service for employers. However, what makes the IBNS Career Center stand out in terms of support, is two additional quality features: resources for job seekers & access to a resume bank for employers.
In the Resources section you can have access to a number of articles with valuable tips in resume building, job seeking and communication, from experienced scientists in the field, not only for searching or applying for a position, but also for the interview process. There is also plenty of advice and tips for building your ‘brand’ and your social media presence, which will help you strengthen your image and moving your career to the direction you want.
 In the Resume Bank, potential employers have free access to a large bank of resumes and profiles, which you can customize by introducing filters that apply to your search and create lists of candidates that fulfill your own criteria.
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Trainee-Focused Events at the 2018 IBNS Meeting
by Cindy Barha, PhD
IBNS Council Student Representative
Postdoctoral Research Fellow
University of British Columbia, Vancouver, BC
As the IBNS Council Student Representative, I would like to welcome you all in advance to the IBNS Annual Conference! To help you prepare for the meeting, I have listed some trainee-focused events below and encourage you to get involved. I will be sending out more detailed information about each event closer to the meeting. Should you have any questions, feel free to send me an email ([email protected]) or come find me at the meeting! I look forward to seeing everyone in Boca Raton!
Student and Postdoctoral Social: Wednesday, June 27th, 4:00-6:00pm
One of the best events at IBNS! We invite all undergraduate, graduate and postdoctoral trainees to join us for some snacks, drinks and socializing to kick off the meeting. This event will take place immediately before the Welcome Reception. You will have the opportunity to sign-up for the "Meet the Professionals" event (see below).
Meet the Professionals Speed Mentoring: Saturday, June 30, 11:30-12:30pm
All trainees are encouraged to sign-up for this traditional IBNS career development event! Each year a diverse range of successful, behavioral neuroscience professionals from institutions across the globe gather at IBNS - Meet the Professionals gives small groups of trainees the opportunity to network with these professional members in a friendly and relaxed setting. For this year's event, we will be trying a 'speed-dating' style, so trainees will speak with at least three professionals! Trainees are asked to sign-up for this event at the Student/Postdoctoral Social, the registration desk, or by emailing the IBNS Council Student Representative, Cindy Barha (or hunting her down at the meeting).
Seats are limited, so be sure to sign up early! The Meet the Professional Speed Mentoring event will be held from 11:30-12:30, allowing participants to have lunch on their own before the scientific sessions resume in the afternoon.
Poster Competition: Friday, June 29, and Saturday, June 30, 6:30-8:30pm
Only trainees that opted into the Poster Competition at registration have been entered. Please try to remain at your poster throughout the the session; if you need to step away, simply leave a note saying when you will return. Using a scale 1-5, two judges will score each presentation on effective use of illustrations, timing, clarity, organization, and logic (1 = Poor, 2 = Fair, 3 = Good But not great, 4 = Consider for Award, and 5 = Award Winner). The judges’ scores for each poster will be combined, and the winners will be announced at the IBNS Award Banquet on July 1. IBNS will have Undergraduate, Graduate and Postdoctoral Award categories for the poster competition. Prizes TBA. Good luck!
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Trending Science
In this column, we share the latest research, interesting scientific articles and news.
Celebrating 20 Years of Nature Neuroscience
by Patricia B. de la Tremblaye, PhD, Guest Editor
University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, PA, USA
Nature Neuroscience marks it's 20th anniversary by commemorating its past influential papers in light of upcoming research avenues in the field. With their rigorous guidelines, Nature Neuroscience has published less than 4,000 articles out of 50,000 submissions over the past 20-year period. The journal will feature, each month, key seminal articles and topics of this period with "Historical News and Views" beginning in the June 2018 issue.
See the editorial article on the 20-year anniversary.
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Official Journals of IBNS: Neuroscience & Biobehavioral Reviews and Pharmacology, Biochemistry and Behavior
By F. Scott Hall, PhD
IBNS President
University of Toledo, Toledo, OH, USA
I am pleased to announce that IBNS will be continuing its long-standing relationships with Neuroscience & Biobehavioral Reviews (NBR), edited by Giovanni Laviola, and Pharmacology Biochemistry and Behavior (PBB), edited by Guy Griebel. These relationships go back nearly three decades: Matthew Wayner was the founding editor of both of these journals, as well as the founding President of IBNS. These have been the official journals of IBNS for 27 years. This long-standing and fruitful collaboration with Elsevier through these journals has been of great benefit to the society. Elsevier has been our most steadfast corporate sponsor for all of this time.
For some years, we have also published a special issue of NBR based on the symposia presented at the annual meeting. These reviews are collective reviews (that is, they are co-written by the collected speakers from each symposium) on a timely topic in behavioral neuroscience. We will be continuing this tradition based on the symposia presented at the 2018 meeting. This will be by invite only; symposium chairs will be contacted soon after the meeting submission to the special issue. In addition, this year we will be publish a special issue of original papers in PBB, based on presentations at the meeting. This special issue will be open to all authors presenting original data at the meeting.
Announcement from Neuroscience & Biobehavioral Reviews
by Giovanni Laviola, PhD
Editor-in-Chief, Neuroscience & Biobehavioral Reviews
Neuroscience & Biobehavioral Reviews (NBR) will be continuing its long-standing relationship with the International Behavioral Neuroscience Society (IBNS). NBR is the premier review journal in the field of Behavioral Neuroscience with a 5-year impact factor of 10.2:
“The journal publishes review articles which are original and significant and deal with all aspects of neuroscience, where the relationship to the study of psychological processes and behavior is clearly established. Conversely, the journal will also publish articles whose primary focus deals with psychological processes and behavior, and which have relevance to one or more aspects of neuroscience.”
This year, IBNS and NBR will continue to publish a special issue based on Symposia presented at the 2018 meeting (this is by invite only, which will go the symposium chairs just after the meeting). This publication will follow the highly successful publications of special issues from the 2014 annual meeting, the 2015 annual meeting, and the 2016 annual meeting, as well as the 2017 annual meeting, which is in production.
NBR is also announcing a change to its Commentary format, which will be a critique of a recently published NBR paper, only. Correspondence style papers will be limited to 1000 words and five references, and the authors of the original paper will be invited to submit a response (also 1000 words and five references limit). The idea is to encourage more critical appraisal of papers, and open debate, than is often observed. This continued affiliation will certainly be of benefit to both NBR and IBNS.
Announcement from Pharmacology Biochemistry and Behavior
by Guy Griebel, PhD
Editor-in-Chief, Pharmacology Biochemistry and Behavior
 I am pleased that Pharmacology Biochemistry and Behavior (PBB) will be the official journal of the International Behavioral Neuroscience Society, alongside Neuroscience & Biobehavioral Reviews. Both PBB and IBNS have a long history together. Many IBNS members regularly submit manuscripts to PBB, act as reviewers for the journal, and serve or have served on the Editorial Advisory Board.
As many of you know, PBB publishes a wide array of content in the behavioral pharmacology field, including research articles and reviews. In addition, we have a new category of papers entitled « Opinion Papers », which present a personal, authoritative, viewpoint on a research-related topic that will both inform and stimulate debate. Those are generally published within a few days after submission. It is important to emphasize that the journal includes studies that report negative results or fail to reproduce past findings because the editorial team believes that both positive and negative results are equally important to enhance our knowledge in the field. Also, considering that reproducibility and the translation of drug effects to the clinical setting are of paramount concern in the neuroscience drug discovery field, we have decided that a positive control is mandatory in studies that describe the effects of an experimental drug. These changes are intended to attract manuscripts that are most appropriate for PBB and the best work from innovative scientists in the field. In general, editorial speed is excellent and papers are published rapidly following submission. For more information, go to the PBB website.
Our editorial team consists of the Editor-in-Chief, an Editorial Manager (Michael Arends), a Special Issues/Mini-Reviews Editor (Kathleen Kantak), and four Section Editors (Rick Bevins, Ed Levin, Shigeyuki Chaki, and Gery Schulteis) who handle manuscripts on (i) motivated behavior, (ii) learning/memory/cognition and neurological/neurodegenerative disorders, (iii) psychiatric disorders, and (iv) drug abuse and addiction, respectively.
This continued affiliation will certainly solidify the relationship between PBB and IBNS, and we expect an increase in submissions and publications from IBNS members. We also plan to host Special Issues, including original papers based on presentations at the Annual IBNS Meeting.
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Join IBNS on Florida's Coast in Boca Raton!
by IBNS Central Office
Join the International Behavioral Neuroscience Society for the 27th Annual Meeting which will take place on June 27-July 2, 2018 in Boca Raton -- South Florida's sparkling coast.
Remember, if you have not taken action yet:
Last Day for Meeting Registration: Friday, June 1, at 12:00am
There is NO ON-SITE REGISTRATION.
Wouldn't you like to save additional discounts on registration fees? Join IBNS and receive even more discounts!
Traveling on a budget? Check out our money saving tips!
Be sure to "like" and follow IBNS on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram, so you can easily share your videos and photos. Be sure to tag us and use the hashtags #IBNSconnect and #IBNS2018.
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Come Hear the Lessons "Learned from a Behavioral Neuroscience Approach to the Animal Modeling of Clinical Syndromes" at IBNS 2018!
by John P. Bruno, PhD
Professor and Chair, Department of Psychology
The Ohio State University, Columbus, OH, USA
Don’t miss the Past-President’s Session at IBNS 2018…during which two past IBNS Presidents, the President-Elect, and a well-respected behavioral geneticist will share some interesting data. But, more importantly, will frame the conversation around lessons learned about applying a range of biological and behavioral methods to studying the neurobehavioral interaction, that is the working space of IBNS.
 They will show that an increasingly detailed and micro ability to manipulate neural systems is not automatically accompanied by an equivalent understanding of the expression of behavioral systems. Past-President, Kelly Lambert (University of Richmond), will discuss using pre-clinical neuroscience investigations, the power of better aligning neurobiological and behavioral approaches to our understanding of the role of neural networks in behavior. Dr. Richard Hunter (University of Massachusetts, Boston) will address how the discovery of the functional deep genome both complicates and enriches our understanding of non-human behavioral models. Both in terms of limiting translatability and in terms of the flexibility of the underlying biology. President-Elect, Jared Young (University of California San Diego), will discuss the heuristic value of generating cross-species tasks with enhanced face and construct validity. When these tasks are carried out under the use of convergent neural biomarkers, our understanding of the neuroscience of behavior will advance considerably. Finally, Past-President and Fellow John P. Bruno (Chairperson, The Ohio State University) will reflect on his 43 years as a behavioral neuroscientist; illustrating some of the lessons that he has learned that are still relevant for translational studies of today. He will highlight examples from research on age-dependent plasticity after brain trauma, as well as the development and validation of animal models of cognitive deficits in a number of human clinical syndromes (Schizophrenia; Alzheimer’s; Depression).
This session is designed to stimulate ideas and discussion about whether behavioral neuroscience research is at a point where a continuation on the current slope will result in a deep understanding of the expression of normal and abnormal behavior, or is a paradigm shift necessary.
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2018 Awards Banquet: Miami Vice
by IBNS Central Office
Because members have asked for it, this year's Awards Banquet will have a theme!
In addition to palm trees, ocean breeze, and glistening blue waters, Florida is also home to Miami Vice. We can't wait to enjoy our final night in Boca with all meeting participants dressed in our best Miami Vice 1980's fashion: t-shirt under pastel suits, no socks, rolled-up sleeves, Ray Ban sunglasses, big hair, etc.
Please join us for this year's Awards Banquet with food, drinks, iconic music, and maybe even more iconic dance moves!
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Do you have an interesting hobby or member news to share?
Let us know at [email protected]
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