Katherine Furman
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As a current senior at New York University, I will graduate in May of 2019 with an Honors B.S. in Neural Science. During my time at NYU, I've become fascinated with neuroscience research, and cannot wait to pursue a PhD in Neuroscience after graduation. I am currently working on my senior thesis in Dr. Robert Froemke's laboratory at NYU Langone Medical Center, where my research investigates the behavioral relevance of auditory pup call stimuli in female mice. The pup call stimulus is completely irrelevant to a naïve female mouse until she births her own pups, at which time she rapidly learns to respond to the sound she once ignored. The lab has shown that this process is dependent on Oxytocin. I am interested in the timescale of this learning process, and in the specific ways that it is affected by Oxytocin; this is a question I hope to address, in part, through my senior thesis project.
In addition to my current position in the Froemke lab, BP-ENDURE has afforded me the opportunity to gain experience in a variety of labs at three different institutions, and to present my work at a breadth of conferences. During the summer of 2018, I traveled to Yale University to work under Dr. Marina Picciotto, studying the role of inhibitory interneurons in the basolateral amygdala (BLA) and how their activity changes during depressive-like behaviors. During the summer of 2017, I traveled to the University of Michigan to work in Dr. Jill Becker's laboratory. Here, my research investigated sex differences in the brain's response to cocaine, looking specifically at how selective estrogen receptors influence dopamine release in the nucleus accumbens of both male and female rats. As a freshman and sophomore at NYU, before joining the BP-ENDURE program, My research career began in the laboratory of Dr. Cristina Alberini studying the expression patterns of Insulin-like Growth Factor 2 (IGF2) mRNA in the rat hippocampus, and investigating the relationship between IGF2 and memory consolidation. All of these research experiences have helped me learn bench skills and life lessons, and contributed to my decision to pursue neuroscience research as a career. Presentation Summary:
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