What new ideas, challenges, or other issues have you encountered with regard to your project (this might include data collection, information that contradicts your assumptions or the assertions of others, materials that have enriched your understanding of the topic or led you to change your project, etc.)?

One challenge that was entirely out of my control involved the lab equipment. The isoflurane machine that is used for the virus injection surgeries, which will ultimately inhibit of the neurons in the target area of the hippocampus, needed maintenance. Luckily, I was able to do the surgeries for my first cohort of test and control mice before the machine needed maintenance. However, the original plan was to have two experimental cohorts in order to strengthen the reliability of the results. Although I will still be able to get results for the first cohort, the small sample size indicates the need for verification of the results. I hope to continue with this project and even use a different methodology to answer the same question to gather converging evidence, ensuring the results are replicable. 

How have these ideas or challenges shaped the bigger picture of your research? Has the scope or focus of your topic changed since you began this project? If so, how?

The equipment challenge hasn't largely altered my current project, but rather it has guided my future direction. However, the focus of my project has changed since I began developing a research question and methodology. Initially, I thought I would study the CA2 region as it has been overlooked in the current literature, and my PI played a major role in discovering the areas significance for social memory formation and recall. As I read more existing papers and talked to my mentors, I began to realize that although CA2 is essential for social memory, it is equally important to uncover the broader circuitry in the heavily interconnected hippocampus that contributes to social memory. I decided to focus my research on the ventral CA1 region of the hippocampus because it is located downstream from dorsal and ventral CA2. Additionally, the projections from CA2 to ventral CA1 have been implicated in social memory, and the ventral CA1 neurons have even been said to store social memory engrams, which is the biological trace of a specific individual. Considering my current methodology, it has also shifted slightly since I started crafting my project. Initially my mentor and I planned on using optogenetics to silence the specific area of the hippocampus using light. However, we ended up opting for the less invasive approach of chemogenetics which involves the injection of a virus with receptors that are activated by specific designer drugs (DREADDs). 

Now that you’ve engaged in Part II of the Leadership Retreat, reflect on a learning point that remains with you as a new way to understand leadership, and to incorporate into your own engagement, in the future.

The leadership retreat was very insightful, and I really enjoyed it overall. One major takeaway I had from Part II this week was the importance of leadership from within. I never considered leading from within as a significant aspect or dimension of leadership. However, when working through the case study, I was able to recognize how several, if not all, members of the team did not have strong leadership from within. I was truly able to see how lacking that aspect of leadership can be extremely detrimental to the effectiveness of the group as a whole. I hope to no longer overlook this aspect of leadership and value it as much as any of the other dimensions of leadership. Along the same lines, the fact that feedback is a mirror of the giver really stuck with me. Moving forward, I hope to always consider feedback in relation to the audience or individual that is providing it, as feedback should be a tool for progress and achieving my goals most effectively.

*The poster features a picture from our lab lunch celebrating one of our members retirement!