October 25, 2023

In early October, Neurobiology students engaged in a dissection of a sheep’s brain. During the lab, students inspected and identified different parts of the brain’s anatomy. Throughout the semester, students are studying the central nervous system which is composed of the brain and the spinal cord. Students will be looking at mammalian brains and examine the gross anatomy of the CNS. In their next unit, students will study cranial nerves and neuronal transmission, and then will look at neurotransmitter systems as well as their role in neurodegenerative disease, such as Parkinson's disease, Alzheimer's disease, ALS, and MS.

In a later class period, Upper School Neurobiology students welcomed Chief of Neuroscience at UHS in Binghamton, Dr. Simone Betchen P’24. There, Dr. Betchen oversees neurosurgery, neurology, pain management, neuro interventional, and non-operative spine, as well as performs over 250 operations each year on the brain and spine. Throughout her presentation, Dr. Betchen discussed her work as a neurosurgeon.

Dr. Betchen is published in multiple areas with most recent acceptances and submission of her articles looking at grit in surgeons by gender, correlation of hospital outcomes based on gender of c-suite make-up, and outcomes on craniotomy for tumors in patients based on race.