Editorial 2009: IMPULSE Broadens its Reach

As we embark on our sixth year in operation, I feel confident in saying that undergraduate student involvement in neuroscience research and publication efforts have been received with increasing warmth both on national and international levels. IMPULSE made its second international neuroscience conference appearance in summer, 2008, at the Federation of European Neuroscience Societies Forum in Geneva, Switzerland. Using Google Analytics, we have found internet hits from 35 countries and territories around the world, and hopefully this will translate into more international student reviewers and more international manuscript submissions! Locally, in November of 2008, IMPULSE was presented at its sixth annual Society for Neuroscience meeting. This was the first year to have representatives from our Middlebury College reviewer training site in attendance. IMPULSE is certainly taking root in the Eastern United States, as we have added a third reviewer training site at Appalachian State University, headed by founding Faculty Advisor, Leslie Sargent Jones and are expecting to open a fourth reviewer training site in the near future.

Part of our goal to become a common name among all neuroscience students and faculty includes new initiatives to increase IMPULSE's involvement in the community. The reviewer training site on the University of South Carolina campus will host the first annual Brain Awareness Week lecture series open to all students, staff, faculty, and community members. Neuroscientists, neurosurgeons, historians, and nurses will give various presentations about topics ranging from Community implications of helmet safety to Interventional neurosurgery to Pain: why men are babies and women have the babies. Proceeds from art and refreshments sales will be used directly to support a travel award for an undergraduate student to attend the 2009 Society for Neuroscience meeting in Chicago, IL. More information about the student travel award, organized by the Faculty for Undergraduate Neuroscience, can be found at http://www.funfaculty.org/drupal/. We hope to see you there as we continue to strengthen our dedication to undergraduate contributions to neuroscience!