WSU Sensory Symposium

This year, Western Sydney University was very generous to host us for a Sensory Neuroscience Symposium at their beautiful Campbelltown campus. This small gathering of researchers brought together like-minded academics and students all passionate about the sensory systems of the human body. Hosted on their wonderful campus at the medical school, the day consisted of keynote talks, short talks and even a brief poster presentation session during lunch, where I was lucky enough to present my work on using exercise to treat retinal degenerations. During the poster session, this was my first chance to present my research, which I thoroughly enjoyed!

The presentations were broken up into three core areas of sensory neuroscience: Somatosensory and Pain Processing, Special Senses and Neurodegeneration. In the first session, we learnt all about pain signalling in humans, temperature regulation and tactile sensation in painful vs non-painful stimuli which was super interesting. The second session focused for on the special senses, those being olfaction, vision and hearing. In this session we saw a presentation from the Clear Visions’ finest, Riccardo, giving an awesome presentation on extracellular vesicles and their molecular cargo in retinal degenerations. The final session focused on neurodegeneration where a lot of the talks focused on models of chronic inflammation which I found really interesting!

Overall, I found the day super informative and very constructive. I managed to make connections with a bunch of like-minded students and really took a lot from this experience! A great way to end the year! Looking forward to a big 2023!

- Nick Barisheff