International Symposium for Neural Regeneration: Asilomar 2020

The Gaudet Lab showed up at Asilomar this year. Andrew presented new work compiled by Sydney Lee and our team, which is delineating the relative salience of pain vs. anxiety using a thermal preference apparatus. The data also show that spinal cord injury may modulate the relative salience of pain and anxiety.

As always, there were many highlights of this intimate meeting by the beach! There was the debate between Jerry Silver and Michael Sofroniew. There were compelling talks by the likes of Veronica Tom, Jen Dulin, and David Magnuson. There was the superb socializing with friends old and new. There were the daily post-conference meet-ups in small cabins on the campus. And there were sunset runs by the beach! It was certainly a worthwhile meeting. See you in 2022.

Gaudet Lab presents at Mission Connect spinal cord injury meeting in Houston.

The Gaudet Lab attended the Mission Connect meeting in Houston. Sydney Lee and Sung-Hoon Park from the lab presented posters. Michael Sofroniew delivered the plenary lecture, and we had the opportunity to discuss SCI Science with colleagues from Texas and beyond. We’re looking forward to attending the International Symposium on Neural Regeneration in Asilomar, CA in January!

Andrew Gaudet and Sydney Lee at the poster session.

New Gaudet Lab technican: Welcome, Sydney Lee!

We’re excited to welcome Sydney Lee as the new Gaudet Lab technician! Sydney is from South Dakota, and completed her BS in Psychology at Minnesota State University. We hope you enjoy trading cold winters in the north for lovely winters here in Austin! (Summer might be a bit warmer here, though.)

Supporting undergraduate achievement at UT-Austin: a challenging road to success for Iraqi refugee Qusay.

There is a great privilege and responsibility afforded to professors - they are in a position to help people achieve their career and life goals.

In November 2018, Andrew joined the UTeam program - a College of Liberal Arts (COLA) program designed to create community between professors and undergrads from under-served populations. Andrew was matched with Qusay Hussein. Qusay has a remarkable backstory, which includes surviving a bomb attack; surviving and achieving despite challenges with being blind; and arriving in the U.S. without speaking English. He is an extraordinary example of resilience and persistent positivity.

Andrew met with Qusay, and helped him find a lab/professor match in UT’s Department of Psychology. Qusay hopes to complete a Ph.D. in positive or motivational psychology.

For more, please read the story in the Department of Psychology’s Spring newsletter.

Gaudet Lab attends TX Circadian Biology and Medicine Meeting

Gaudet with colleagues from Houston.

The Gaudet Lab presented a poster at the Annual Texas Society for Circadian Biology & Medicine Meeting, held in College Station, TX – home of Texas A&M, which is a 1.5-hour drive from Austin. The atmosphere was electric (including thunderstorms!), and incorporated remarkable presentations by chronobiology researchers from Texas and beyond.

Gaudet Lab work featured in print

Dr. Gaudet’s circadian work was featured in the Spring 2019 edition of The Spin – a magazine for individuals with spinal cord injury in British Columbia. Gaudet completed research at ICORD at the University of British Columbia for eight years, and still has links to the area. The article discusses our recent SCI-circadian studies, the story of how these studies developed, and how these results could potentially help individuals with SCI.

SCI2020: Moving SCI research forward.

Dr. Gaudet joined colleagues at the inspiring and productive SCI2020 meeting in Bethesda, MD. It was great to see friends, and to interact with a diverse audience that included preclinical and clinical scientists, industry researchers, and individuals with SCI. Gaudet also presented a poster.

Spinal cord injury and circadian disruption: 2 of 2

Dr. Gaudet published paper 2 of 2 on spinal cord injury-induced circadian disruption in Journal of Neurotrauma. This paper reveals that spinal cord injury disrupts crucial rhythms of metabolic function – even far away from the injury site – including peripheral glucose oscillations, glucose machinery mRNA in liver, and circadian rhythms in fecal output. These discoveries highlight new directions for improving spinal cord injury-elicited metabolic dysfunction.

Spinal cord injury and circadian disruption: 1 of 2

Dr. Gaudet published paper 1 of 2 on spinal cord injury-elicited circadian disruption in eNeuro. This was a collaboration completed with colleagues at the University of Colorado Boulder. The manuscript shows for the first time that spinal cord injury disrupts various measures of circadian rhythms, including body temperature, activity, and corticosterone. These results could have implications for post-injury treatment, from acute-to-chronic phases. The paper has received press coverage! See here and here.

First undergraduate assistant hired.

Sung-Hoon Park, a Junior in the Health Science Scholars Honors program, has joined as the first undergraduate assistant in the Gaudet Lab! Welcome, Sung-Hoon.

The Gaudet Lab exists!

We’ve opened The Gaudet Lab at the beautiful Health Discovery Building at the University of Texas at Austin.