Joyce Woo
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I am a rising Senior at New York University, and will complete my undergraduate studies with a Bachelor in Science in Neural Science and minor in Chemistry. I am particularly interested in infant neurobiology and attachment, and have spent much of my time investigating both human and animal development. I am currently working on my senior thesis in Dr. Regina Sullivan’s lab at NYU Child Development Center, exploring the neurobiology of early life adversity. During my time in the Sullivan lab, I have developed a close working relationship with my postdoc mentor Maya Opendak, who introduced me to the Local Field Potential project, a collaborative project investigating the effects of a naturalistic maternal abuse paradigms on neural oscillations in rodent pups using electrophysiological recordings. I have been providing updates on my data analysis from BORIS ethology software based on video recordings of mother and pup interactive behavior.
This summer, I have been part of the Blueprint Initiative for Enhancing Neuroscience Diversity through Undergraduate Research Experiences (BP-ENDURE) program at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tennessee in the lab of Kathryn Humphreys, PhD, studying stress and early human development. Here, I am tasked to learn infant functional and structural magnetic resonance imaging techniques. Using an existing neuroimaging processing interface, Nipype, which is an extension of Python, my role is to optimize quality control and preprocessing steps for infant brain data. I have been examining the associations of prenatal stress on the hippocampus, amygdala, and white matter connections between the medial prefrontal cortex and the amygdala during infant neurodevelopment. Working across species has allowed me to address and ask complementary questions about how to implement basic science research into translational medicine. Currently, I am interested in epigenetic regulation of neural gene expression specifically looking at histone modifications associated with early-life caregiving experiences – particularly maltreatment. I hope to one day be the first in my family to attain a PhD, and to become a principal investigator at a research-1 institution. Presentation Summary: Vanderbilt Summer Research Conference (Poster 2019) : Optimizing preprocessing pipelines for infant functional MRI data to examine associations between prenatal stress and infant neurodevelopment” Joyce Woo, Marissa Roth, Kathryn Humphreys PhD., Ed. M. Langone Environment and the Brain Symposiums New York, New York (Poster 2019): “ Deconstructing infant trauma and pathology: Infant hippocampus targeted by stress but stress paired with mother targets amygdala” Kevin Bui, Joyce Woo, Maya Opendak PhD., Regina Sullivan PhD. NYU Undergraduate Research Conference, New York, New York (poster 2019) : “Maternal presence blocks fear learning in infant rats by blocking plasticity molecules” Joyce Woo, Anna Blomkvist, Maya Opendak PhD., Regina Sullivan PhD. Eastern Psychological Association, New York, New York (poster 2019) : “Maternal presence blocks fear learning in infant rats by blocking plasticity molecules” Joyce Woo, Anna Blomkvist, Maya Opendak PhD., Regina Sullivan PhD. Scientista Symposium, Microsoft Headquarters, New York (poster 2018): “Infant trauma with a caregiver: Acute neurobehavioral mechanisms and a role for amygdala dopamine” Joyce Woo, Maya Opendak, Ashleigh Showler, Charlis Raineki, Tania Roth, Regina M. Sullivan Eastern Psychological Association, Philadephia, Pennsylvania (poster 2018) : “Early Life Maltreatment (Scarcity-Adversity Model) Induced Behavioral Deficits are Repaired by Environmental Enrichment” Joyce Woo, Anna Blomkvist, Stephanie Chan, Maya Opendak PhD., Regina Sullivan PhD. Publications: Opendak M, Robinson-Drummer P, Blomvkist A, Zanca RM, Wood K, Jacob L, Chan S, Tan S, Woo J., Wilson DA, Serrano PA, Sullivan RM (2019). Neurobiology of Maternal Regulation of Infant Fear: the Role of Mesolimbic Dopamine and its Disruption by Maltreatment Nature – Neuropsychopharmacology 2019 Jun;44(7):1247-1257. doi: 10.1038/s41386-019-0340-9. Epub 2019 Feb 13 |