March 2008 - CBN Encourages Georgians to Celebrate the Brain
 Georgia Governor Sonny Perdue has proclaimed March Brain Awareness Month (BAM) in Georgia, and members of the Center for Behavioral Neuroscience and the Atlanta Chapter of the Society for Neuroscience are encouraging teachers, students and families in Georgia to join them in celebrating the brain.
“The brain is small enough to hold in our hands, yet controls every aspect of our thoughts, perception and behavior. Even a small malfunction in the brain can have a huge impact on the lives of individuals and those around them,” said Kim Maguschak, a CBN Graduate Scholar, member of the Atlanta Chapter of the Society for Neuroscience and a graduate student in the Emory University Neuroscience Program.
“It is important to inform people about the brain and let them know what is being done to diagnose, treat and prevent brain disorders.”
Activities and events in celebration of BAM include:
K-12 Classroom Visit
The CBN and the Society for Neuroscience are continuing their tradition of K-12 classroom visits. During the visits, scientists encourage students to participate in fun neuroscience related activities such as building a brain out of Play-Doh and touching a real brain.
“Neuroscience is generally not covered in the curriculum of Atlanta schools, therefore we recognize the need to help supplement science education and inspire children to think about careers in neuroscience,” said Michael Black, Ph.D., a CBN Postdoc Fellow of Georgia State University, who works with Kim Maguschak to coordinate Atlanta’s classroom visits.
“Brain awareness is so important because it involves all of us in our daily lives, whether it is the effects of sleep deprivation, jet lag or even how we respond to advertisements,” he said. “It is imperative that future generations have an understanding of how the brain works so they can make informed decisions.”
Last year, the group visited more than 65 different schools and 7,600 students in four counties including Cobb, Gwinnett, Dekalb and Fulton. Teachers who are interested in scheduling a classroom visit, can fill out an online request form at www.atlantabrains.org. All requests are filled on a first-come, first-served basis.
Brain Expo at Zoo Atlanta
The CBN’s Brain Expo will take place on Saturday, April 5, from 9:30 a.m. until 4:30 p.m. at Zoo Atlanta. The Expo is a fun, interactive, K-12 and community education program for children and adults that features more than 30 hands-on education stations exploring various topics related to the brain and behavior. Each year, thousands of Expo take part in activities such as building brain art, playing mind-boggling games, and taking their turn at the famous prize wheel.
“The Expo has become the largest educational event of its kind in the country,” said Kyle Frantz, Ph.D., Expo Director, CBN Science Educator and an Assistant Professor of Biology at Georgia State University. “Members of the public seem enthusiastic about gaining knowledge in new areas, as well as, piecing together tidbits they hear on the news with scientific evidence they explore at the Expo.”
In addition to Expo favorites such as touch-a-brain and the giant neuron, this year’s visitors will enjoy visiting new stations. The Amazing Story of Phineas Gage will be featured this year. Gage was a railroad worker who suffered severe brain damage in an accident. Changes in his behavior after the damage provided insight into the role of the frontal cortex in emotion, decision-making, and other complex behaviors.
Kids who like to visit the brain art station will enjoy creating “brain bling” to wear home.
Participation in the Expo is free with paid Zoo admission.
Photo by: Rob Poh
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March 2008 -- MIT's McGovern Institute Honors Michael Davis, Ph.D.
 The McGovern Institute has announced that CBN Member Michael Davis, Ph.D., a Robert W. Woodruff Professor of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at Emory University School of Medicine, will be the 2008 recipient of the Edward M. Scolnick Prize in Neuroscience for his work on the neural basis of fear.
The Scolnick Prize is awarded annually by the McGovern Institute to recognize an individual who has made outstanding advances in the field of neuroscience.
“This is an enormous honor, and I am extremely grateful to the McGovern Institute and their review committee for this prestigious award and very generous prize,” says Dr. Davis.
Over the last three decades, Dr. Davis, who is also a researcher at the Yerkes National Primate Research Center, has devoted his career to providing fundamental insights into the way humans learn fearful associations. He has contributed to important studies showing that fear learning is controlled by a class of molecules known as NMDA receptors, acting within a brain structure called the amygdala.
“Fear conditioning is normal and very adaptive, and there’s a mechanism that has evolved to make people remember potentially dangerous things,” Dr. Davis explains. “But for some people, anxiety disorders become crushing weights that keep them from living normal lives.”
While scientists have discovered many of the mechanisms in the brain that are responsible for fear, what they have not discovered is the mechanism that allows humans and other animals to overcome fear and lead normal lives.
“By determining what areas of the brain are responsible for fear and anxiety, we hope to target those areas and find new therapies for people whose fear overwhelms their ability to function normally.”
To do this Dr. Davis studied the process of extinction - a process by which learned associations such as fearful memories eventually disappear – and showed it uses the same NMDA receptors that cause the brain to acquire fearful associations. Based on this, Dr. Davis’s lab showed that a medication called D-cycloserine (DCS) speeded up extinction of fear. This was predicted based on work by other scientists who had shown that DCS, originally used at high doses to treat tuberculosis, made the NMDA receptor work better when given at low doses.
In 2004, Dr. Davis and his colleagues at Emory, Kerry Ressler, M.D., and Barbara Rothbaum, Ph.D., published the first trial in humans using DCS to speed up fear extinction. Patients with fear of heights took the drug before each therapy session, using virtual reality exposure therapy with a simulated glass elevator. These patients recovered much more quickly than the patients given placebo, and maintained this advantage at three months with no intervening therapy needed. Seed money for this clinical trial was provided by the Center for Behavioral Neuroscience.
Currently, a National Institutes of Mental Health clinical trial is being conducted at Emory using a combination of DCS with virtual reality therapy for Iraq Veterans with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). It is hoped that the addition of the drug will speed recovery for soldiers who have been haunted by combat-related memories.
The McGovern Institute will award the Scolnick Prize to Dr. Davis on Monday, April 14, 2008.
Story and photo courtesy of: Kathi Baker of Emory University
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