Dr. Seth Koslov is a BRAIN F32 award recipient who used the funding opportunity to study the functional anatomy correlated to executive functions and episodic memory retrieval in the human brain. The fellowship supports the research training of promising postdoctorates early in their postdoc training period.
The NIH BRAIN Initiative funding portfolio enables the collaborative and multidisciplinary research necessary to help us understand the brain’s complexities. Dr. Seth Koslov received a BRAIN Initiative F32 Individual Postdoctoral Fellowship award to support his research to study decision-making and memory-characterizing functional neuroanatomy within the posterior cingulate cortex. The F32 program supports promising postdoctorates early in their careers by enhancing their research training in project areas that advance the goals of the NIH BRAIN Initiative. This is the final article of a series highlighting the careers of NIH BRAIN Initiative F32 grantees. Please stay tuned for more researcher highlights in the future.
While the BRAIN F32 funding opportunity is not available due to budget constraints, we encourage applicants to follow and search the NIH Guide to find funding opportunities that best fit their proposed projects. Other funding announcements, like the parent F32, for example, may be good options.
Check out the interview below to learn more about Dr. Koslov’s postdoc research. He discusses how he became interested in neuroscience, what he hopes to achieve next, and the advice he’d give to other early-stage career researchers.
Would you please briefly introduce yourself, your research interests, and your academic background?
My name is Seth Koslov (he/him), and I’m currently a postdoc in Dr. Brett Foster’s lab at the University of Pennsylvania. My current research involves using a combination of precision functional neuroimaging and human intracranial recordings to investigate the closely intertwined relationship between executive control and memory. I’m particularly focused on characterizing the manner in which these mnemonic and control processes are supported by the posterior cingulate cortex. I received my Ph.D. in Psychology in Cognitive Neuroscience from the University of Texas at Austin, where I also earned my B.A. from the Plan II Liberal Arts program.
What led you to research? What continues to drive your ambitions as a scientist?
The nebulous nature of the brain has always fascinated me, but initially I did not know how to turn that fascination into action. That changed when I took Dr. Bharath Chandrasekaran’s Language and the Brain course as an undergraduate. I had that ‘a-ha!’ moment. I realized that neuroscientists were asking and, more impressively, were answering the types of questions I was so interested in! From then on, I was hooked. I was determined to learn as much as I could about how the brain works, and how this amazing organ produces such complex and varied behaviors.
What major unanswered questions do you hope to address in your research?
There’s so much we need to learn about the brain, and so many interesting questions to explore! I’m captivated by the complex nature of memory, and the way in which mnemonic and control systems interact to guide behavior. The posterior cingulate cortex stands out to me because, in human functional neuroimaging studies, the region is ubiquitously implicated in episodic memory retrieval. However in non-human primate research, the posterior cingulate is often regarded as involved in cognitive control. Characterization of the region in humans has been difficult due to the location of the region within the medial surface, making it challenging to isolate the dynamics of posterior cingulate signals using traditional electrophysiological recording and neuroimaging methods. I hope to use the combined approaches of cutting-edge technologies, such as functional neuroimaging alongside intracranial electrophysiology, to better delineate the functional neuroanatomy of the posterior cingulate and to more precisely define its unique role at the intersection of memory and executive control.
What are some of the challenges you have encountered in your research and/or career? How have you or how are you working to overcome them?
I began my postdoc at a bit of a wild time–both personally and globally. I had just become a first-time parent in the midst of a pandemic. I’ve been fortunate to have a great community of mentors, family, and colleagues who have helped me adapt to each new obstacle. At times, that has meant working together with my mentors to pivot research plans in response to limitations imposed by COVID. Other times, that has meant learning about how to establish and protect my work-life balance as a parent.
What would be the next step in your research?
My next steps are to continue to develop the skillset necessary for building and running my own research program. That means continuing with my research into memory and executive control, growing my time-management and mentoring abilities, and developing a K99/R00 research and training proposal.
What would be your advice to others who may want to apply to the parent F32 program?
I’d say get started planning and writing your application as early in your postdoc as possible. The BRAIN Initiative’s focus on integrating neuroscience technologies across scales makes it the ideal place to support researchers, like me, who want to extend the training they have in one domain into another. And while making that type of transition can be difficult, the work that you put into writing your research and training plans for your F32 application will be incredibly useful for focusing your postdoc experience.
Practically speaking, I found it beneficial to spend a lot of initial time refining and getting feedback on my specific aims before moving on to the rest of the fellowship application. It was important to make adequate time and space for those initial steps in the writing process. Having the project aims as clearly written as possible served as a strong anchor for developing the rest of the training plan and proposal.
Are there any specific relevant training and professional development opportunities that you find useful during the fellowship?
I try to take advantage of any occasion to connect with other researchers who I wouldn’t normally be interacting with, especially in settings where I have the chance to either be an active mentor or mentee. For example, I really enjoyed and benefited from attending the BRAIN, Neuroscience, and Beyond: Building Our Early Career Community event at the BRAIN Initiative Conference last year. There, I had the opportunity to take part in candid conversations about the expectations and realities of working towards becoming a principal investigator (PI) with researchers across all-levels and disciplines. I’ve found events like that to be informative throughout my training.
Fill in the blank: When I’m not working on a research project, I am…
Chasing around a rambunctious four-year-old, playing soccer, baking, or going to the theatre.
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