Devin Palmer

Devin graduated from Macalester College, in St. Paul, MN, with a BA in Neuroscience and Psychology. Working under the guidance of Drs. Julia Meyers-Manor and Eric Wiertelak, he investigated how differing levels of long-term environmental enrichment could reverse spatial memory deficits attributed to the disruption of cholinergic neurotransmission after scopolamine administration. After graduating from Macalester in 2015, Devin worked as an ORISE lab technician at the US Army Medical Research Institute of Chemical Defense. Working in the lab of Dr. Erik Johnson, his research was particularly interested in the neuroinflammatory cascade that occurs after exposure to organophosphorus nerve agents. Devin assisted in identifying temporal changes in inflammatory cytokines and chemokines, and targeting the cascade of inflammation using pharmacological countermeasures and biological genomics to identify plausible neuroprotective roles. While continuing to work in Dr. Johnson's lab, Devin was invited to collaborate with another lab under the guidance of Dr. Jacob Skovira. During this time, Devin used optogenetic approaches to anti-convulsant therapy against military threat agent toxicity, targeting regions of dense cholinergic innervation and projections. In the Summer of 2019, Devin began his first year in the Interdisciplinary Program in Neuroscience, and was instantly drawn to the research topics and techniques of Dr. Forclli. Devin rotated in Dr. Forcelli's lab through the Summer of 2019, implementing optogenetic and in-vivo multi-wire arry electrophysiology techniques to delineate neuronal activation patterns and the seizure suppressive mechanisms. As a thesis student in Dr. Forcelli's lab, Devin hopes to continue to investigate and target regions of the brain that influence epilepsy.