The Society for Neuroscience (SfN) has announced the recipients of its 2023 Early Career Awards, with several researchers who use animals in their studies honoured in the selection.
Among the awardees was Patrick LaChance, now at Boston University, USA, for the Donald B. Lindsley Prize in Behavioral Neuroscience – his PhD research looked at how animals understand their position and movement in their surroundings, by analysing the brain activity of rats navigating inside a box.
The Nemko Prize in Cellular or Molecular Neuroscience went to Gily Ginosar, at the Weizmann Institute of Science, Israel, who studied flying fruit bats to provide new insights into neurons called grid cells, and shed light on the neuronal basis of navigation in 3D space.
All three recipients of the Peter and Patricia Gruber International Research Award used animals in their work – mice were central to understanding brain wiring, in brain immune cells called microglia, in the research of Emilia Favuzzi, now at Yale University, USA.
Tristan Geiller, now at Columbia University, USA, studied how long-term memories are formed from short-term ones by developing a technique to record and control specific neurons in awake mice; while Abhilasha Joshi, currently at EARA member the Champalimaud Centre, Portugal, used rats to investigate the link between movement and memory, which can be impaired in diseases such as Alzheimer’s.
Finally, one recipient of the Young Investigator Award, Ishmail Abdus-Saboor, now at Columbia University, developed methods to investigate pain and pleasure in mice to understand their biological basis, in order to provide better care for those suffering from chronic pain.
The awards will be presented at the SfN Neuroscience 2023 conference, 11–15 November, in Washington DC, USA.