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Sheena M Brown
| My entry into science ended 12 long years of desk-bound administrative work, when I decided to begin a Bachelors degree in zoology at the University of Otago, in Dunedin New Zealand. During my undergraduate study I met Professor Alison Mercer, who introduced me to the exciting world of invertebrate neuroscience, and inspired me on to graduate study. My PhD thesis "Ultrastructural Analysis of Activity Dependent Volume Changes in the Antennal Lobe of the Worker Honey Bee" was co-supervised by Dr Mercer, and also Dr Ruth Napper from the Department of Anatomy & Structural Biology at the University of Otago. Dr Napper is an expert in transmission electron microscopy and in stereological analyses of neural tissue, an invaluable combination of methodology that I have been lucky enough to learn. |
| My PhD research involved quantifying total synapse number within two uniquely identifiable antennal lobe glomeruli from bees of different ages, and also from bees of the same age but with different behavioural status. My results showed that increases in synapse number are glomerulus specific, and that, contrary to previous assumptions, increases in glomerular volume are not necessarily associated with changes in synapse number. My results have also shown that some, but not all, changes in environmental conditions effect structural changes in specific glomeruli. |
| This interest in neuronal plasticity has lead to my present position in the Strausfeld laboratory. I am currently investigating the plastic relationship between Kenyon cells and other afferent and efferent processes within cockroach mushroom bodies during development. This will expand our knowledge of interactions between discrete neuronal circuits, as part of the developmental process. These efforts are aided by immuno-labelling techniques for electron microscopy, which are being established. I am also interested in the mushroom bodies from an evolutionary perspective, and am pursuing a comparative ultrastructural study on cockroach, dragonfly and honey bee species. |
Please click on my Curriculum Vitae for references
sheena@neurobio.arizona.edu
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