NeuroGirl Kira writes on our first time experience of a conference:
This week the NeuroGirls attended
their very first Neuroscience conference hosted in London, UK –the BNA 2013. We
thought it may be interesting to dissect our thoughts and experiences of a
conference as first-timers. The conference days were packed full of appealing
lectures and posters, with so much to see and do that there was barely a minute
to spare. The conference was set across a large space, the Barbican centre
being a maze in itself. Organisation was key! We found ourselves armed with
detailed itineraries to help keep our focus and direction. The topics covered
by the BNA conference spanned across the whole of neuroscience, from astrocytes
to autism. There were opportunities to attend relevant talks for your own
research area; as well as non-relevant areas which appeal to your own personal interests;
and even media-coveted topics (such as the talk on the use of psychedelic drugs
in depression by Professor David Nutt as commented on by the BBC). Set in the middle of the all the talks was
also the chance to browse posters with the opportunity to network with the
poster’s author and discuss research ideas. Whilst this experience may seem
daunting to any academically-young PhD student, all of the authors we met were
very friendly, helpful and clear. Although as a whole the conference seemed a
bit daunting and overwhelming at first (with so many intelligent scientists and
detailed research ideas) the overall experience was very valuable and the
people very welcoming! NeuroGirl Rebecca thinks the best part of the BNA was… the academic posters:
The sights! The sounds! The colours! And that was just one particularly
interesting delegate presenting a poster with flaming red hair and amazing
spike heels. The BNA poster sessions were by far my favourite part of the
conference. The symposiums were interesting and informative, but quite often,
the quality and depth varied vastly from session to session, leaving me
floundering in one quarter of a 4-part session and tapping my nails in boredom
in the next. The academic posters on the other hand, gave me, as a naïve and
interested first year, the chance to peer into a wide range of topics,
explained to me by some very helpful presenters. My research interests are in
thalamocortical spindles and neurovascular coupling and I was lucky enough to
also find these well represented at the conference. What impressed me the most
however, was how enthusiastic everybody was to talk to me. I spoke with a young
and nervous medic, only in his fifth year, who charmingly explained what slow
oscillations had to do with declarative memory and naps – I’m now most
thoroughly in favour of a mid-afternoon nap, apparently it IS long enough to
see a positive correlation with memory performance, something I badly
need! I also spoke with lovely post-docs, seemingly stern group heads and
many excellent PhD students all of whom were happy to explain their work and
answer all questions that popped irreverently into my head. I would encourage
anyone, especially PhD students to go along to the poster sessions, they are
absolutely fab for improving your social and networking skills, but also for
gaining additional ideas about your own research. I left each session with my
head buzzing with new ideas, often ones that had been inspired by a quick chat
with someone with a poster seemingly irrelevant to my own work. You never know
what you will gain until you step up to that sea of ideas and plunge in!
NeuroGirl Priya gives her take on the BNA experience:
The BNA conference this year held at the Barbican saw the congregation
of many neuroscience researchers within the UK and abroad get together and
present months of hard work, to the wider neuroscience research community.
Having been the first scientific conference I have attended within my PhD, I
was very excited to be attending and to be honest had no expectations of how
this conference was to be. I was pleasantly surprised when I arrived at the
Barbican as it was a very big venue and was completely packed with people - it was
really nice to see that the neuroscience community is a big and an inclusive
one. My itinerary was jam packed with all the important related lectures and posters I had previously highlighted. Conferences like these offer a great opportunity to be able to talk to a range of people, all of whom I spoke to were so evidently passionate about their research it truly was motivating for a first year to witness this and speaking to authors in person definitely helps in getting a greater understanding of the research carried out. In addition, the variety of lectures and talks meant that I could pick and chose the ones I found most interesting. Similar to the posters, I found going to the talks a good experience and opportunity to understand my field of research better and also think about when I would have to give presentations in the future (eek!).
The BNA was jam packed with things to do and this is congratulatory for all the organisers as they were able to simultaneously carry out poster sessions,
lectures, workshops, company stalls as well as have interactive stalls for the general
public to be apart of all at the same time and all with minimal glitches. It was evident that
months of planning and organising took place prior and with the number of
volunteers assisting, it was really nice to see this kind of involvement and
importance given to conferences, this definitely makes me feel proud to be a part of
the scientific community and the British Neuroscience Association.
On the flip side, and I think this must be the case for most conferences
due to the sheer amount of researchers presenting, it was evident that it became hard to fit
everyone in to the timetable and this meant having many activities overlap so there were times were I had to miss out on some things. In addition, this also meant some talks started really early in the day and some talks went on until 8pm. This element of the conference definitely left me drained by the end of the day. A key thing to remember about conferences is that there is usually a plethora of information and sometimes it can be a bit overwhelming, in my case I found it hard to remember all the new information I was presented with throughout the day as well as taking part in all the networking events added on to the end of each day as
well.
The BNA was a great first conference for the
Neurogirls as we were able to find and interact with researchers carrying out similar research topics throughout the UK, proving to be an invaluable experience. We also feel that through this conference we have been able to understand and appreciate the research we carry out in the wider context and therefore apply this to our future work. We greatly look forward to
attending the next BNA conference, with more energy and having the privilege to attend
similarly interesting talks again, so watch this space neuroscience!
