Bernice grafstein biography

Bernice Grafstein Shanet is a Canadian neurophysiologist, a professor at Weill Cornell Medical College in New York and a noted specialist in neuroregeneration research.
Bernice Grafstein Shanet (born September 17, 1929) is a Canadian neurophysiologist, a professor at Weill Cornell Medical College in New York and a noted.
Bernice Grafstein was trained as a physiologist, developed the potassium hypothesis of cortical spreading depression, characterized fast axonal transport, and.

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Bernice Shanet

Canadian neurophysiologist

Bernice Grafstein Shanet (born September 17, 1929)^[1] is a Canadian neurophysiologist, a professor at Weill Cornell Medical College in New York^[2] and a noted specialist in neuroregeneration research.^[3] Shanet is a Professor of Physiology and Biophysics at Weill Cornell Medical College,^[2] the holder of the Vincent and Brooke Astor Distinguished Professorship in Neuroscience at Weill Cornell Medical College,^[4] the Professor of Neuroscience for the Brain and Mind Research Institute at Weill Cornell Medical College ^[5] and the first woman ever to serve as president of the American Society for Neuroscience.^[4] Shanet is famous for her studies of the transport of materials down the axon nerves and her thesis work on the mechanism of cortical spreading depression, which became a classic in its field and is acknowledged even today.^[5]

Biography

Shanet was born in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, on September 17, 1929.^[1] She attended the Universi

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Bernice Grafstein: Advancing the Field and the Next Generation

During her second year of graduate school in 1952, Bernice Grafstein protested when she was offered a smaller stipend than a male classmate. She was told that he had a higher cost of living because he had to foot the bill when he took girls out on dates. After pointing out that she also incurred expenses from dating — like the cost of nylon stockings and trips to the hair salon — her chairman relented and gave her the higher stipend.

The Society for Neuroscience

This was one of the few occasions where Grafstein felt that she had to stand up against unfair discrimination. She went on to make important contributions to the field of neuroscience, and in 1985, she became the first woman to become president of the Society for Neuroscience.

What was it like to be a female graduate student at a time when very few women were pursuing careers in scientific research?

There were a number of women in my college class in physiology and biochemistry. We weren’t very numerous, but we didn’t feel out

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Bernice Grafstein

Dr. Bernice Grafstein received her B.A. in physiology at the University of Toronto and her Ph.D. in neurophysiology at McGill University in Montreal. As a graduate student she trained as an electrophysiologist, working on structure-function correlations in the cerebral cortex. Her thesis work was on the mechanism of cortical spreading depression, which appears as a wave of decreased electrical activity advancing slowly over the grey matter. This phenomenon has been recognized as playing an important role in migraine, stroke and other cortical pathology. Her contributions established the role of the extracellular movement of potassium ions in propagation of spreading depression, and her work has become a classic in its field, acknowledged even today. She subsequently became interested in nervous system development and regeneration, and is known for her work on intracellular transport of protein in normal and regenerating neurons, as well as other forms of molecular signaling among various cell types in the brain. She has been President of the Society for Neuros