Shiyu Lin is a Senior majoring in Neuroscience and Behavioral Biology. She was awarded a Fall 2018 Conference Grant which she used to attend the Neuroscience 2018 Conference.
“The figure is not properly aligned.”
“The font color is not consistent.”
“ Is this dotted line horizontal?”
…
I stared at the screen with eighty eight comments from my principal investigator (PI) on my first draft of poster, sighing. If at that point I knew what I would be looking like three days later, I would not sigh that early because the second poster draft received another twenty comments. However, when I finally hung the poster which had my name, my lab name, and my school name up on the board, I was so thankful for my PI and myself for making this poster closer and closer towards perfect.
More than 25,000 scientists attended the 48thannual meeting of Neuroscience 2018hosted by the Society for Neuroscience (SfN). Scientists coming from all over the world stopped by my poster presentation using the common language----science. It was exciting to talk to scientists who knew probably more than I did about my research. At the same time, it was challenging for me to answer questions and exchang ideas. I remember one scientist from Imperil College at England complimented that our work was unprecedented and smart. Then he talked about his opinions on the interpretation of our figures, which gave me inspiration on doing further analysis. I also received some critiques such as the individual variability which was hard to control. Some of which questions I have not done analysis on provides me multiple perspectives in studying the heterogeneity of human physiology.
Other than my own poster presentation, I also stopped by posters that were relevant to my research. For example, one researcher from Georgia Tech developed her own software which could increase the precision of the location on brain stimulation. I asked her some questions that I encountered when I was using the current available software to apply brain stimulation on human. Some of my issues were addressed in her software, and some she thought were valuable suggestions which could be added to her software.
The conference was a huge platform where different research was connected as a spider web. Every poster shined itself to igniter other work and at the same time received input from other brilliant minds. As an undergraduate student, there were so many fascinating research and ideas presenting at the conference. I attended one of the lectures talking about the applications of interactions between brain neural activity and implantable computers. This technology can be used, for example, when a person with muscle dysfunction was trying to generate a movement. The computer could detect the command and help sending the firing information down to the target muscle. Although the techniques sounded fancy, the basic property about the neural connections in brain and how neurons responded to stimulations were similar to my research. Before, I never thought that my research results may be applied in the future in this potentially revolutionary technology. The lecture was eye-opening, and facilitated my understanding of my own research.
With the common language of science, neuroscientists around the world got together. As a newborn to the neuroscience world, I realize that I have so much yet to explore.
Visit the Undergraduate Research Programs website to learn more about applying for Conference Grants.
Visit the Undergraduate Research Programs website to learn more about applying for Conference Grants.
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