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I am a member of AChemS, the Association for Chemoreception Sciences. This growing society includes researchers in gustation, olfaction, vomeronasal chemoreception, and oral trigeminal systems working in many different levels, including clinical, behavioral, physiological, and molecular approaches. The organization holds a meeting every April in Sarasota, FL that offers generous travel funds for students, including undergraduates.
I am a former and potentially future member of the Society for the Study of Ingestive Behavior, which includes researchers looking at the behavioral, neural, and neurochemical underpinnings of ingestive behvior, obesity, and eating disorders. The dues for this society are very cheap for student members.
While I hold no other professional affiliations, students interested in Psychobiology may want to check out:
The Society For Neuroscience, an affiliation of nearly 30,000 neuroscientists, psychologists, physiologists, and anyone else that has anything to do with the brain. The 2001 meeting was attended by over 28,000 people.
The American Physiological Society, a society devoted to general physiology, but their Journal of Neurophysiology is one of the premier journals in neuroscience.
The American Psychological Association has over 150,000 members including both clinicians, practicing couselors, and researchers. The APA has over 50 divisions organized by subject matter; Division 6 is the Division of Behavioral Neuroscience and Comparative Psychology.
The American Psychological Society was founded in 1988 to provide a voice for the scientific study of psychology that was complementary to other organizations that focused on psychological practice.
The following is a linked list of journals germaine to psychobiology and neuroscience that offer free copies of articles (either to the public or through the Olin Library).
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences is an unusual journal in that submissions for publication must be "communicated" to the journal by a member of the National Academy of Sciences. A single PNAS volume is divided into subject areas which include the biological, physical and social sciences; Neurobiology tends to be well-represented and Psychology is also represented.
The Journal of Neuroscience is probably the premier journal of those devoted exclusively to neuroscience. The journal has different editors for different divisions of the field; that for "Systems Neuroscience" tends to be the most relevant to those with an interest in psychobiology. It is the official journal for the Society for Neuroscience. Free aticles restricted to 1 year ago or older.
The Annual Review of Neuroscience is, in my opinion, the very best way to brush up on major research areas in neuroscience and psychobiology if you are not following the primary literature closely. This yearly volume has typically had around a dozen invited "chapters" which are written by an expert in some hot area of research, and the level of writing tends to be for the general neuroscience audience as opposed to other specialists in the specific subfield. Often the volume will include an interesting philosophical or historical chapter as well. The 2001 volume was about twice the size of an preceeding volume, which would be a nice trend if it continues. Free aticles restricted to 1 year ago or older; search Olin catalog.
The Annual Review of Psychology tends to be less relevant to me because it includes many papers outside of psychobiology. Nonetheless, each issue tends to have two or three very relevant, high quality chapters. I also occasionally see relevant papers in the Annual Review of Physiology. Free aticles restricted to 1 year ago or older; search Olin catalog.
Trends In Neurosciences, like the Annual Review volumes, is a good way to keep up on the latest research. Articles in TINS are shorter than those in an Annual Review and tend to be written a little more for the specialist. Because TINS appears monthly, there are more subjects covered yearly.
Current Opinion In Neurobiology is another fine reviews journal with the interesting feature that the reviews concentrate on relevant research in the past year. The reference list is therefore annotated with comments on the previous year's papers. There are other psychobiology-relevant current opinion titles.
The Journal of Neurophysiology is one of the very best journals for electrophysiological investigations of the nervous system. Free aticles restricted to 1 year ago or older.
The American Journal of Physiology is a journal I have published in. It has many components; Cellular Physiology is occasionally useful but the Regulatory and Integrative Physiology section is particularly relevant to explorations of homeostasis and ingestive behavior. Free aticles restricted to 1 year ago or older.
Chemical Senses is a journal included with your membership to AChemS. It publishes papers at all levels (human, clinical, neuroscience, molecular biology) related to taste and smell and sometimes related oral sensory systems (trigeminal, vomeronasal).
Physiology and Behavior covers topics such as ingestive behavior, learning and memory, and reward systems from a physiological perspective.
These journals are particularly relevant to my research.
Behavioral Neuroscience, formerly the Journal of Comparative and Physiological Psychology, is one of my all-time favorite journals and one in which I frequently publish. Published by the American Psychological Association, it features many classic psychobiology papers using the lesion-behavior approach, psychopharmacology, neuroanatomy, and electrophysiology, and is usually relevant to psychology and behavior. This link takes you to the current table of contents.
These are the departments I have worked in, colleagues that I have collaborated with, and colleagues whose work in particularly pertinent to our research.
I was an undergraduate at the University of Florida and later got my PhD from the Psychology Department there. UF now has a Smell and Taste Center for research in the chemical senses and The McKnight Brain Institute for neuroscience research (including a strength in the repair of spinal cord injury).
I was a postdoctoral research associate for 4 years at the University of Maryland, Baltimore in the Department of Anatomy and Neurobiology.
My graduate advisor and the man responsible for my peculiar interest in what rats can and can't taste is Alan Spector who is the Assistant Director of the University of Florida's Smell and Taste Center.
My postdoctoral mentor and one of the leading thinkers in the field of taste coding is David V. Smith. Dave has authored papers at almost every conceivable level of analysis, from human psychophysics, peripheral and central electrophysiology, animal behavior, neuroanatomy, and the expression of proteins in taste receptor cells. A true renaissance man in the field.
My "academic grandfather", colleague, and friend James C. Smith has contributed a great deal of knowledge (and several future investigators) to the study of taste and smell. His only flaw is that he works at Florida State University.
My collaborator John Boughter, whose expertise in both behavioral genetics (he created a line of congenic mice that we study here at Reed) and electrophysiology (he taught me how to record electrical activity neurons) has been a great contribution to my own research.
Here are some internet sites of persional interest.
My passion for college football began in Gainesville, and I have followed Gator sports ever since.
Like about ten thousand other scientists, my interest in science was inspired by the nonfiction and science fiction of Isaac Asimov. Jenkins Guide To Asimov is the best Asimovia internet site; the webmaster has review virtually all of Asimov's science fiction short stories as well as his 400+ books.
I'm trying ever-so-hard to become a competent chess player; the database at Chess Lab is one of the best resources out there.