NSF Postdoctoral Fellowship in Biology FY 2020

This action funds an NSF Postdoctoral Research Fellowship in Biology for FY 2020, Broadening Participation of Groups Under-represented in Biology. The fellowship supports a research and training plan for the Fellow that will increase the participation of groups underrepresented in biology. The proposed research investigates how early life social environments and development mode shape decision-making processes.

During early life, young range in developmental mode across a precocial-altricial spectrum, where precocial species are born mobile and independent whereas altricial species are born helpless. Additionally, young can experience a variety of early life social environments, from small family groups to large communal rearing populations. How do these two factors-developmental mode and early life social complexity-interplay to shape how adults make decisions (cognitive style) and the underlying neuromolecular mechanisms of decision-making?

Understanding how the early life social environment and patterns of development shape adult mammalian decision-making is critical to understanding the decisions animals, including humans, make in a complex social world and the shared neural mechanisms governing these processes. The Fellow will use educational outreach to encourage participation in research by students who are otherwise underrepresented in scientific disciplines.

The proposed research compares a unique pair of rodent species: the precocial and communal African Spiny Mouse, A. dimidiatus, and the altricial Mongolian Gerbil, M. unguicalatus. Within each species, juveniles will be reared in either a simple (small group) or complex (communal) early life social environment. Upon maturity they will be tested in four behavioral tasks to assess cognitive style across contexts, including metrics boldness, exploration, decision-speed, choosiness, and neophobia.

Following an additional two-part social exposure task, brains will be analyzed for co-localization of neural activity (c-fos expression) and early life neurogenesis (BrdU) in regions associated with social decision-making including the hippocampus, basolateral amygdala, preoptic area, and lateral septum (among others). Using cellular compartment analysis of temporal activity by fluorescence in situ hybridization (catFISH), the Fellow will identify distinct neural activity patterns across the two-part social exposure task.

In parallel with the described research endeavors, the Fellow will develop a support network for URM graduate students within the Emory University Graduate Division of Biological and Biomedical Sciences (GDBBS). To do so, the Fellow will organize Diversity and Excellence in Academia Research Symposia (DEARS) consisting of panels by URM faculty members, career development sessions, a mentor-mentee meetup, and an affirming environment for participant research presentations.

This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.