Chrastil Lab publishes a paper in NeuroImage (2022), “Theta oscillations support active exploration in human spatial navigation”

Authors: Chrastil, E.R., Rice, C., Goncalves, M., Moore, K.N., Wynn, S.C., Stern, C.E., Nyhus, E.

*See link under publications tab!

The RAs led the organization of a lab social at Irvine Regional Park last Sunday afternoon with the summer lab members. Folks brought pizza, charcuterie board, snacks, sparkling water, and other beverages for a relaxing get-together event outdoors. Thanks to the RAs who helped plan this event for the lab!

The Institutional National Research Service Award (T32) is a training grant for predoctoral and postdoctoral trainees to prepare for careers with significant impact in health-related research. Erica was recently awarded this grant for the Mathematical, Computational, and Systems Biology (MCSB) program specifically, which, according to their grant description online, “requests support for a pre-doctoral training program designed to produce Ph.D.s with sufficient skills in fundamental biology, mathematical and computational modeling, and data science to attack these challenges [in biomedical science] head on.” The training program will involve an extensive cirriculum, close mentorship, and collaborative learning. Congrats, Erica!

Daniela and Mike attended Neurohackademy – a 2-week summer school in neuroimaging and data science – at the University of Washington eScience Institute in Seattle, WA. After an initial week of lectures (with topics including reproducibility, programming, data/code management, and advanced neuroimaging techniques and analyses), they joined participant-led teams to get hands-on experience applying what they’d learned to existing, openly available, neuroimaging data.

Pictured: The 2022 Neurohackademy cohort

Daniela’s team worked with diffusion MRI to create software that functionally segments white matter connections to generate task-specific subcomponents of fiber bundles. Mike’s team applied functional connectivity and multivoxel pattern classification to functional imaging data on a memory task.

Pictured: Mike’s Neurohackademy team

The Summer Institute in Neuroscience Program is a research experiences program hosted by UCI’s Center for the Neurobiology of Learning and Memory (CNLM), the NSF and DoD-Funded Research Experience for Neuroscience Program, and the UC Office of the President UC-HBCU Program. Our lab mentored 2 students from the 2022 cohort, and they each led their own research projects.

Morgan Skinner analyzed path preferences within an immersive virtual environment, and Nikhita Kaushik analyzed the relationship between survey and graph knowledge. At the conclusion of their 8-week program, they presented their work at the Summer Institute Research Symposium during an elevator pitch presentation and a poster session. Great work, Morgan and Nikhita!

Left photo: Morgan Skinner. Right photo (left to right): Nikhita Kaushik, Alina Tu

Chrastil Lab publishes a paper in Proceedings of the 44th Annual Conference of the Cognitive Science Society (2022), “Large-scale vs small-scale spatial abilities: Development of a broad spatial activities questionnaire”

Authors: Munns, M.E., Tranquada-Torres, B., Chrastil, E.R., & Hegarty, M.

*See link under publications tab!

Mitchell Munns, one of our lab’s collaborators at UC Santa Barbara, presented an oral talk at the Cognitive Science Society (CSS) 2022 in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. He shared the work from his newly-published paper (with co-authors Bailey Tranquada-Torres, Liz Chrastil, and Mary Hegarty) titled Large-Scale vs Small-Scale Spatial Abilities: Development of a Broad Spatial Activities Questionnaire. Way to go!

Over the summer, Liz was invited to speak at the 4th Interdisciplinary Navigation Symposium (iNAV) 2022, a 3-day symposium in June, which took place virtually over Gather Town and Zoom this year. She presented the lab’s studies and most recent findings regarding individual differences in human navigational abilities. Check out the archive if you missed it: https://inavsymposium.com/inav-2022/

Throughout the three days, Vaisakh, Mike, Lily, and Alina also presented their work via poster presentations within the Gather Town virtual environment – fitting for a navigation conference!

Some of our lab’s RAs worked together to plan an end-of-the-year lab social at Corona Del Mar State Beach last Friday. We celebrated our graduating students and the conclusion of a successful academic year with games, a photoshoot, a bonfire, and – of course – lots of delicious s’mores. Shoutout to Amanda, Taylor, and Luke for planning such a nice bonding event for the lab! Congratulations to all of our graduating students. We wish you the best as you move on to the next chapters of your lives.

Left photo (left to right): Lily, Vaisakh, Daniela, Liz, Mike, Theo. Right photo (left to right): Luke, Taylor, Amanda, Sundas, Vicky, Olivia.

Top (left to right): Kimmy, Mike, Luke, Vaisakh, Matt. Middle (left to right): Olivia, Vicky, Liz, Amanda, Taylor. Bottom (left to right): Theo, Daniela, Lily, Mookie, Sundas.

Erica Ward received the 2022 John W. Haycock Memorial Graduate Student Travel Award in recognition of her outstanding achievements as a graduate student in neurobiology. This award will assist her to travel and present research at a conference. Mike Starrett Ambrose received the 2022 Roger W. Russell Award in the Neurobiology of Learning and Memory for his dedication to exacting scholarship, integrity, collegiality, and steadfast support of the goals and programs of the CNLM. Both of them gave a 2-3 minute talk at the 2022 Center for Neurobiology of Learning and Memory (CNLM) Awards Ceremony on May 25, 2022 to share their research project with the attendees. Congrats to both Erica and Mike!