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Hi, I'm Liz Bitler and I'm a psychology major at Haverford College with a concentration in the neural and behavioral sciences. I'm from Pittsburgh and when I started at Haverford I was planning on continuing on to med school. Right now I'm planning on taking a year off to work in a lab before applying to grad schools for a PhD in biosychology or neurobiology. I think it's interesting to think about the biological mechanisms that affect our experiences of the world or our behavior.

I spent this past summer working on a research project about the relationship between exposure to enriched environments and pain behavior in mice. Enriched environments have been shown to promote cell growth in the brain (neurogenesis) and the field of neurogenesis research has really grown in the past several years. Although researchers have identified some interesting cognitive and behavioral changes associated with neurogenesis, it hasn't been thought about with relation to pain behavior until now. Currently Emily and I are hoping to induce neurogenesis with galantamine (and Alzheimer's drug) and decrease it with nicotine to compare pain behavior in relation to various amounts cell growth.

All of this research has gotten me interested in plasticity in the brain, although my interest is definitely focused on the later-life brain development than initial early-life development. I'm interested in thinking about the ways that our brain is able to recover from damage and how this may be relevant to treatment of disease or disorders such as Alzheimer's disease. I thought that the interview with Dr. Whitehouse was really interesting; I didn't realize that all people develop the neuritic plaques and tangles that are associated with AD. I also think that the question about how the changes associated with AD can lead to alterations in personality, and I think this may have implications about how we think of other personality disorders and the "damaged" brain.

For this class I'm curious to hear about neural correlates for free will and consciousness, and I think that the discussions about neuroethics should be really interesting. I'm currently taking a class on writing about science where we're focusing on the misrepresentation or misapplication of scientific findings, so I think that should help me think critically about how we're using technology and treatments in neurobiology. Overall I think it should be an interesting seminar and I'm looking forward to the discussions!