{"id":9246,"date":"2021-03-20T14:28:33","date_gmt":"2021-03-20T14:28:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/2021\/04\/01\/neuroscience-major-applies-brain-work-to-brain-work-also-maple-doughnuts\/"},"modified":"2022-09-07T15:39:22","modified_gmt":"2022-09-07T19:39:22","slug":"neuroscience-major-applies-brain-work-to-brain-work-also-maple-doughnuts","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/neuroscience-major-applies-brain-work-to-brain-work-also-maple-doughnuts\/","title":{"rendered":"Gut check: Anju Saxena &#8217;21 will share work on how diet affects the brain"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><iframe title=\"Furman Engaged (Anju w\/ captions)\" data-src=\"https:\/\/player.vimeo.com\/video\/530976880?h=d3b9b51a25&amp;dnt=1&amp;app_id=122963\" width=\"500\" height=\"281\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"autoplay; fullscreen; picture-in-picture; clipboard-write\" src=\"data:image\/svg+xml;base64,PHN2ZyB3aWR0aD0iMSIgaGVpZ2h0PSIxIiB4bWxucz0iaHR0cDovL3d3dy53My5vcmcvMjAwMC9zdmciPjwvc3ZnPg==\" class=\"lazyload\" data-load-mode=\"1\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>Dollars to doughnuts, Anju Saxena \u201921 will see her name in a peer-reviewed scientific journal before she enters graduate school. Make that a maple doughnut.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWhenever I see a place that has a maple doughnut, I go crazy,\u201d said Saxena, a neuroscience major whose mentor,\u00a0Assistant Professor of Biology Linnea Freeman, started a tradition several years ago, taking her lab students to an Augusta Street sweets spot.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cShe has worked with me for at least three years, so she\u2019s been a big part of that tradition,\u201d said Freeman.\u00a0\u201cIt\u2019s ironic because my research is on how high-fat diets affect the brain.\u201d<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_49782\" style=\"width: 306px\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\"><img decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-49782\" class=\"wp-image-49782 size-full lazyload\" data-src=\"https:\/\/news.furman.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/03\/AanjuCropped.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"296\" height=\"526\" src=\"data:image\/svg+xml;base64,PHN2ZyB3aWR0aD0iMSIgaGVpZ2h0PSIxIiB4bWxucz0iaHR0cDovL3d3dy53My5vcmcvMjAwMC9zdmciPjwvc3ZnPg==\" style=\"--smush-placeholder-width: 296px; --smush-placeholder-aspect-ratio: 296\/526;\" \/><p id=\"caption-attachment-49782\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Anju Saxena &#8217;21.<\/p><\/div>\n<p>On April 13, Saxena will showcase her work during the 13th annual\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/furman-engaged\/\">Furman Engaged<\/a>, held virtually this year, when she unveils her 27-page thesis, \u201cSex Differences in Gut-Mediated Neuroinflammation.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Roughly translated: your gut has a trillion or so good bacteria called microbes. Feeding them bad things, like high-fat, high-sucrose doughnuts, really can mess with your head \u2013 even more so for males, as the study shows.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAnd yet our lab tradition is to go eat a high-fat diet together,\u201d said Saxena with a laugh. \u201cSo we always wonder if we\u2019re really experimenting on ourselves.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The daughter of Naveen Saxena and Vinita Srivastava, both local physicians, Saxena caught the brain wave back at Riverside High School in Greer, South Carolina, when her sister would come home from Furman; Juhi Saxena \u201919 graduated with a bachelor\u2019s in neuroscience and now attends Wake Forest Medical School.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt was a shared passion between us,\u201d said Saxena.<\/p>\n<p>In fact, the two collaborated on the elder sister\u2019s own Furman Engaged\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/scholarexchange.furman.edu\/furmanengaged\/2019\/all\/481\/\">presentation<\/a>, which involved neuroinflammation. <a href=\"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/furman-engaged\/full-schedule\/\">Furman Engaged<\/a>\u00a0features presentations across disciplines and celebrates\u00a0immersive learning experiences available through The Furman Advantage, which provides every student with a personal, integrated four-year pathway that emphasizes mentoring and advising.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe brain is really cool,\u201d said Saxena. \u201cWithout the brain, nothing else works, and when you\u2019re in the neuroscience program, you learn exactly how it all works. What amazes me is that there are so many places we could go wrong, that we could mess up, and yet we work.\u201d<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_49565\" style=\"width: 810px\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\"><img decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-49565\" class=\"wp-image-49565 size-full lazyload\" data-src=\"https:\/\/news.furman.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/03\/LabGroup.jpeg\" alt=\"\" width=\"800\" height=\"450\" src=\"data:image\/svg+xml;base64,PHN2ZyB3aWR0aD0iMSIgaGVpZ2h0PSIxIiB4bWxucz0iaHR0cDovL3d3dy53My5vcmcvMjAwMC9zdmciPjwvc3ZnPg==\" style=\"--smush-placeholder-width: 800px; --smush-placeholder-aspect-ratio: 800\/450;\" \/><p id=\"caption-attachment-49565\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Saxena (second from right) working with her classmates in Freeman&#8217;s lab before the pandemic.<\/p><\/div>\n<p>Saxena certainly works, and Freeman applauds her ethic.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cShe is quiet and humble, but a true leader,\u201d wrote Freeman in a Furman Fellows recommendation letter.<\/p>\n<p>Of the younger Saxena\u2019s departure, Freeman says, \u201cI\u2019m so sad that their legacy is coming to an end. I told Anju the other day, via text, that I will miss her. But I hope \u2013 and expect \u2013 we will stay in touch.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>For now, Saxena plans to take a gap year and stay close to home, perhaps working for a nonprofit such as Safe Harbor. She cherishes her family\u2019s closeness (they have even <a href=\"https:\/\/www.researchgate.net\/scientific-contributions\/Anju-Saxena-2074760889\">worked together on papers<\/a>), just as she treasures Furman\u2019s small class sizes and bonding with her professors.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI know she is on to great things,\u201d said Freeman.<\/p>\n<p>Added Saxena, \u201cI&#8217;m just going to keep doing what I love and enjoying the journey of learning and knowledge, and see where life takes me.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Dollars to doughnuts, Anju Saxena \u201921 will see her name in a peer-reviewed scientific journal before she enters graduate school. Make that a maple doughnut. \u201cWhenever I see a place [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":265,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[15,26,19,79,7,1,55],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9246","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-academic-department-page","category-administrative","category-biology","category-neuroscience","category-top-four-news-2nd-story","category-uncategorized","category-undergraduate-research"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9246","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/265"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9246"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9246\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9246"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9246"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9246"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}