On Saturday, July 12, the Neuroscience GSA held a trivia game at The Chocolate Bar on Chippewa Street in Downtown Buffalo.  Questions ranged from general topics such as, “What was the weight of Einstein’s brain?” (1230g or 2.71lbs) to “Describe two different ways that acetylcholine can function as a neurotransmitter” (open nicotinic receptors and activate muscarinic receptors).  Claire Modica organized the trivia presentation and Courtney Benson won the competition.  A special thanks goes out to Dr. Susan Udan, Dr. Anil Neelakantan, and Dr. Yannick Poitelon for contributing trivia questions and answers for the event.

The Neuroscience GSA held our annual NeuroGSA picnic on Wednesday, June 18^th this year. As in previous years, the picnic was once again held at the beautiful Ellicot Creek Park, which runs along Tonawanda Creek. Members of the UB Neuroscience community fired up the grill and gathered together to partake in some great summer food and drinks on a warm summer day. This is the 5^th consecutive year of the “end-of-the-year” picnic, which serves as an unofficial marker of another successful year of Neuroscience and events by NeuroGSA members. The event is planned, funded, and organized by the Neuroscience GSA and sponsored by the Neuroscience Program.

On Friday, December 13, the Neuroscience GSA joined with the Biological Sciences GSA and the Pharmacology and Toxicology GSA for a social gathering at The Chocolate Bar in downtown Buffalo to celebrate the end of 2013.  This interdepartmental activity was supported, in part, by the central Graduate Student Association, which began funding collective events in 2012, to foster relationships between students from different disciplines.  The event was quite successful!  Graduate students mingled by the flowing chocolate fountain to get acquainted and enjoy themselves, while sipping on imaginative cocktails and snacking on an array of sweets.

Life Technologies’ facility in Grand Island, NY

Life Technologies, now a ThermoFisher Scientific company, hosted the NeuroGSA last autumn for a discussion about careers in industry. On November 20, 2013, the NeuroGSA was treated to a presentation given by their Human Resources, Manufacturing, and Research and Development departments, and then took a tour of the GIBCO facility on Grand Island.

On Friday, September 27, the UB Neuroscience Program and the Buffalo chapter of the Society for Neuroscience held the annual Buffalo Neuroscience Research Day. The NeuroGSA got together for an after-party at Anchor Bar, one of Buffalo’s restaurant institutions and inventors of the famed Buffalo Wing. Members of the club were joined by visiting students and post docs, as well as members of other UB Graduate Student Associations who attended and/or presented at the Neuroscience Research Day.

As anyone who has ever been a graduate student can tell you, socializing with students outside your lab, much less your department, is not high on your list of priorities. Between the long hours, the distance between labs, and the normal human tendency to fall into routines, it’s rare for students from different departments to spend a great deal of time interacting. When Neuroscience GSA president Jay Garaycochea and Psychology GSA president James Mantell met to discuss how to use interdepartmental funding, they hit upon the idea of having a GSA-sponsored social where members of the clubs could get to know each other outside the usual confines of the university.

Four GSA’s took part in the event: Neuroscience, Psychology, Pharmacology and Toxicology, and Microbiology. A variety of ideas were considered, including a potluck dinner, a barbecue, a sporting contest, and a concert/movie, but ultimately we agreed that an evening at a bar would be the best way to get people to talk; there are few times when people are more likely to let their guard down than while eating and drinking with friends.

The social was held at the Pearl Street Grill and Brewery in downtown Buffalo. The restaurant is known for its house microbrews and vibrant atmosphere (never more so than on the night of a Sabres game). The event was held on December 18, 2012, right after classes ended, giving GSA members an opportunity to end the semester in style before winter break. Beer, pizza, chicken wings, hummus, carrots and celery, potato pancakes, and other items were provided courtesy of the GSA budget. The social officially began at 6:00 PM, with most students arriving by 7:00. Approximately fifty to sixty people showed up over the course of the night, most of whom stayed for several hours.

Click here to view the event announcement.