![\"\"](\"\/ombs\/files\/2018\/11\/IMG_9589-636x424.jpg\")
<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
For Dr. Mario Muscedere, it all started with animals. During the weekends and summers of his childhood, the Baltimore, Maryland native would rise with the sun and escape with his dog, a mutt and former stray, to explore the woods and streams surrounding his suburban neighborhood, not returning home to reality until the dark swallowed the day. <\/span><\/p>\n \u201cI was one of those kids who had to be restrained if there was a dog, cat, or any kind of animal around,\u201d Dr. Muscedere said. \u201cI was turning over rocks, always begging to go to the zoo, anything I could get I could not get enough of.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n Now, Dr. Muscedere is a full-time lecturer, with roles in both the Undergraduate Program in Neuroscience and the Department of Biology at Boston University. Currently, he instructs BI\/NE 545: Neurobiology of Motivated Behavior in the fall and BI 315: Systems Physiology and BI 542: Neuroethology in the spring. Although his intrigue with the interaction between animals and behavioral biology has been a constant in his life, he was not introduced to the field of neuroscience until he arrived at BU for his Ph.D. <\/span><\/p>\n \u201cI graduated with a B.S. in Biology from the University of Maryland, so I didn\u2019t really have any neuroscience experience until I came here,\u201d Dr. Muscedere said. \u201cI did my Ph.D. research in the Traniello Lab, and I thought I was just going to study termite behavior, because that\u2019s what I was doing as an undergraduate. But the Traniello Lab was discussing a new project they wanted to explore- the physiology and neurobiology that underlies behaviors in ants. The lab was heading in that direction, and that was the first time I really started to become a neuroscientist.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n For his graduate research, he focused on studying the sensory, neuromodulatory, and behavioral mechanisms that support task performance of individual worker ants in cooperative colonies. During this time, he also learned how to perform basic neuroscience laboratory techniques, such as brain dissections and immunocytochemistry, to investigate the brain anatomy and neurochemistry of their ant subjects. Then, as a postdoctoral faculty fellow and lecturer for BU\u2019s Undergraduate Program in Neuroscience, he assisted in the revamping of the undergraduate neuroscience major \u2013 planning and creating course themes and topics along with lab manuals and the curriculum. <\/span><\/p>\n \u201cI did that for about three years, and then I got a job teaching at a small liberal arts college in Arkansas,\u201d Dr. Muscedere said. \u201cI worked there for three years- great school, great students- but decided to come back to Boston because it was just the right move. So when this job opened up, I went for it.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n Dr. Muscedere returned in September of 2017, making this year his second academic school year as a full time lecturer at BU. Here, he says that BU gives him the freedom to try new things, especially in terms of instructional strategies, whether that be clicker questions or starting new classes to give students interesting experiences. Additionally, as a lecturer, he is able to form meaningful academic relationships with students. <\/span><\/p>\n \u201cThe best part of my day is just sitting in office hours and having people come by and talking about the subject,\u201d Dr. Muscedere said. \u201cIt can be hard to make those one-on-one relationships when you teach really big classes, but in some of my upper level classes that are about 15 students it\u2019s a lot easier and that\u2019s what I really like: having that personal effect on somebody\u2019s career, having an \u2018aha\u2019 moment with them.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n He accredits this opportunity to have a personal effects with students to tight knit community of the neuroscience department. <\/span><\/p>\n \u201cI think with the neuroscience program in particular, since it\u2019s small we think a little more about undergraduate experience, whereas in some of the bigger departments where the divisions are more spread out, that\u2019s harder to do,\u201d he said. \u201cSo I think that it\u2019s easier for us to get to know students than it is for some of the other programs.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n While his current focus is undergraduate education, he continues to work on research, working collaboratively with the Traniello lab and finishing up some of the projects he started in his previous job. Dr. Muscedere\u2019s studies aim to understand how worker brain evolution may be linked to the behavioral, social, ecological, and life history variation that exists among species- investigating sensory deprivation and neuroplasticity, among other areas. <\/span><\/p>\n \u201cHow animals in social groups make decisions and think strategically\u2026 it\u2019s something that applies to humans too,\u201d he said. <\/span><\/p>\n For current students, he has one piece of advice.<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cThink about what you might want to do when you graduate and set yourself up now to get where you want to go, as opposed to scrambling in the last two years,\u201d Dr. Muscedere said. \u201cSo start reaching out to your professors, ask about research and shadowing opportunities, volunteering, and UROP projects. Build towards getting experience because that is what will help you get where you want to go.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n According to Dr. Muscedere, anybody who is college now for neuroscience is presumably going to witness incredible gains made in the next 30-50 years- because of this, going to graduate school for neuroscience opens up the opportunities to work on projects that are truly cutting edge. <\/span><\/p>\n \u201cIn many ways, the field of neuroscience is still in its infancy,\u201d Dr. Muscedere said. \u201cThe central problem in neuroscience, or at least behavioral neuroscience, is how do we connect activity of neural circuits to behavior? That question is still almost wide open, and what better time to get involved than in the beginning?\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n Written by: Emme Enojado<\/span><\/p>\n Editor: Yasmine Sami<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" For Dr. Mario Muscedere, it all started with animals. During the weekends and summers of his childhood, the Baltimore, Maryland native would rise with the sun and escape with his dog, a mutt and former stray, to explore the woods and streams surrounding his suburban neighborhood, not returning home to reality until the dark swallowed […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":14401,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1366],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/ombs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7838"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/ombs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/ombs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/ombs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/14401"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/ombs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7838"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/ombs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7838\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7840,"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/ombs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7838\/revisions\/7840"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/ombs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7838"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/ombs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7838"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/ombs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7838"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}