Project Title: The Price of Happiness: The Effect of Antidepressants on Memory Consolidation
BASIS Advisor: David Calhoun
Internship Location: Georgetown University: Department of Neuroscience
Onsite Mentor: Dr. Jian-Young Wu
We know that antidepressants affect mood, but how do they affect memory? We can explore the relation between the two by studying neuronal activities called Sharp-wave Ripples (SWRs), which play a critical role in the processes of memory consolidation. SWR activity occurs spontaneously in the hippocampus of all mammals and can be recorded/analyzed graphically. Changes in SWR occurrence and amplitude indicate an alteration in memory consolidation processes; for instance, SWRs appearing more frequently signifies a temporary enhancement in the processes of memory consolidation. This project analyzes the effect of different SSRI antidepressants on SWR occurrence by recording neuronal activity in rodent hippocampal slices. My research will be conducted at Georgetown University’s Department of Neuroscience, since it is one of few places with the necessary facilities and lab equipment to record neuronal oscillations. Through this project, I seek to elucidate any adverse physiological effects of antidepressant drugs and better understand the mechanisms of SWR formation within the hippocampus.
My Posts
Week 10: The End of My Journey
May 16, 2021
Hey everyone! Alas, we have made it to the end of this journey. My senior project certainly wasn’t what I expected it to be, but nevertheless, I’ve learned an incredible amount from my experiences. Although I was not able to go into labs and conduct research, the past 10 weeks of independent study and virtual […]
Week 9: Bring Everything Together
May 08, 2021
Greetings to all! As I am nearing the end of my senior project, I have spent this week working on my final presentation and deliverable. My request to enter the labs at Georgetown is still pending, so it looks like I will not be able to complete the necessary research to present solid data at […]
Week 8: Slowing Things Down
May 04, 2021
Greetings! Welcome to another blog post! This week has been fairly slow compared to other weeks, largely due to the lack of news from my lab. I’ll update you guys with that information at the end of the blog. In the meantime, although I’ve slowed down with the literature review, I have continued with online […]
Week 7: A Deep Dive into Antidepressants
Apr 25, 2021
Hello again, This week I’m back again with another (yes you guessed it) literature review. Don’t worry, after seven weeks of research papers, this process is finally coming to an end. Truthfully, with so much background information, I just want to get my hands on some data! With that being said, this week I took […]
Week 6: A Nihilistic Approach to Science
Apr 16, 2021
Hi guys, Welcome to this week’s blog. This week was more literature review (wow so fun…). At this week’s lab meeting, we discussed a paper about how social cues are represented in the brain. The paper must have been poorly written because one of the graduate students in our lab group started talking about the […]
Week 5: Drugs, Patients, and Doctors
Apr 10, 2021
Hello everyone! Welcome to week 5! Man does time fly. I wasn’t able to get as much done this week as I have spent much of my time sorting out college decisions and working on scholarships. However, things have not come to a complete halt. In the past few days, I have finished up my […]
Week 4: A Bump in the Road
Apr 02, 2021
Hello Everyone, Welcome to week 4 of my blog! This week has been fairly uneventful compared to the past few weeks, though I still have a few updates for you guys. A lot of my reading this week was centered around EEG (electroencephalogram) and LFP (local field potential) recording analysis. For the first time during […]
Week 3: The ABCs of Neural Oscillations
Mar 26, 2021
Hello Everyone, Welcome to week 3 of my blog! A new week, a new pile of research papers! This week, I learned about neural oscillations in the brain, focusing on alpha, beta, gamma, and theta oscillations. As complicated as this may seem, these oscillations are a reliable and convenient way to assess the impacts of […]
Week 2: So Many Research Papers…
Mar 20, 2021
Welcome back to another week’s blog! This week has not been all that different from the week before, but now I seem to be drowning in the sea of research papers. Much of my reading this week has been about the serotonergic system, and its role in neuronal processes in the hippocampus. Turns out, serotonin […]
Week 1: Starting my Senior Project (via Zoom)
Mar 12, 2021
Hello everyone! My name is Jeffrey, and welcome to my Senior Project blog! During the past year, COVID-19 has significantly impacted our daily lives. In attempts to slow the spread of this disease, many of us have been in quarantine for what feels like forever. Issues of mental health have been exacerbated as a result, […]