Sophie A. Barton

@sophiebarton
634 Followers
581 Following
188 Posts

PhD student in the Hecht Lab of Harvard University. Studying how selection shapes the brains & behaviors of working dog breeds & other canids ๐Ÿถ ๐Ÿง  http://caninebrains.org

Interested in #neuroscience #neuroimaging #MRI #DTI #neuroanatomy #brain #workingdog #workingdogs #dogtraining #dogs #canine #canid #fox #foxes #domestication #animalbehavior #comparativecognition #biologicalanthropology #anthropology

Iโ€™m excited to share this video made by my graduate school about my research on dog play behavior! youtu.be/I7eWuOhFQrc

In this week's blog, we share 3 things that you must keep in mind while writing your grant.

๐Ÿ‘‰https://researchimpactacademy.com/blog/3-tips-to-surviving-the-grant-writing-process/

#researchimpact #impactacademy #grantwriting #MasteryMonday

3 tips to surviving the grant writing process

As you begin to prepare yourself for the upcoming grant writing season, consider the recent survey of 195 academics, by  Ted and Courtney von Hippel, which found the average proposal takes a principal investigator 116 hours (see publication). It's no wonder that the grant writing process is loathed by many researchers, as it costs them over 100 hours lost time from their ongoing work, all for a success rate as low as 15%.

Research Impact Academy
Our lab is looking for a postdoc! We study the neural basis of social vision using a combination of (naturalistic) neuroimaging, behavior, and computational modeling. More details on the lab and position are at our website: isiklab.org
Please boost :)

This is really cool!
A fossilised larynx has been found for an ankylosaur (Pinacosaurus) which shows that it was very complex, suggesting that it could have produced complex vocalisations! This is incredibly interesting!

https://www.nature.com/articles/s42003-023-04513-x
(Figures from the paper)
#paleontology #Palaeontolgy #dinosaurs

An ankylosaur larynx provides insights for bird-like vocalization in non-avian dinosaurs - Communications Biology

The earliest larynx discovered in fossil dinosaurs indicates that non-avian dinosaurs may have had bird-like vocalization.

Nature

Just a picture of #Marley, a Border Collie I meet now and then.

He's as fanatic as they come.

#dogs #dogsofmastodon #BorderCollie

I'm an astronomer currently fighting for regulation and better engineering of satellites (particularly Starlink) so that the night sky isn't ruined for everyone: https://theconversation.com/soon-1-out-of-every-15-points-of-light-in-the-sky-will-be-a-satellite-170427

I also have super cute baby goats!

Soon, 1 out of every 15 points of light in the sky will be a satellite

Megaconstellations of satellites will visually clutter the night sky, disrupting astronomical research. And the environmental damage caused by these satellites is still unknown.

The Conversation
My first post on Mastodon! I'm a neuroscientist interested in #hippocampus (and #HippocampusGurus), learning, and the mechanisms of fear memory and #extinction. I'm interested in connecting with other scientists and hearing about the cool science you are doing or reading about.

๐ŸŽ† Happy new year everyone! Weโ€™re back with a post by writer Joe Stucynski who writes about a new piece of technology, called Neuropixels, that is shaping what kinds of experiments neuroscientists can do.

๐Ÿ’ง Joe talks about why neuroscientists need to engineer new tools if they want to understand the brain, why Neuropixels are so exciting, and gives one example of how Neuropixels have already taught us more about how the brain coordinates the response to thirst.

โ“ What other things might you want to learn from experiments with Neuropixels?

#neuroscience #science #sciComm #Neuropixel #brain

https://pennneuroknow.com/2023/01/10/we-have-the-technology

We have the technology!

PennNeuroKnow
For our 1st toot of 2023, weโ€™d like to highlight Sugar the Indian Village Dog (Desi Dog). She participated in one of our MRI studies. Village dogs like Sugar range freely in human towns, but are not owned by any one person. Sugar started off her life in India, but after being injured by a car, was luckily rescued. Sheโ€™s now a happy companion dog. Learn more about our dog MRI research: https://projects.iq.harvard.edu/caninebrains/caninebrainsMRI #dogs #villagedog #neuroimaging #neuroscience
MRI Studies

After over a year of analyzing data from this test battery, I finally took my (almost) own dog to be tested. ๐Ÿ˜„ This is the cylinder test, which is thought to measure a type of inhibitory control. Aida seemed to be pretty good at it!

She was also absolutely amazing at memory and social learning, but human gestures, logical reasoning, and the V-detour proved difficult for her.

Is she "intelligent"? She is very good at some things, not so good at others, just like most dogs! :)