NHS grad to present in Washington, D.C.

Madison Bagnall’s hard work is paying off.

In November, Bagnall will get a chance to shine on the national stage in Washington, D.C. when she presents her research at the Society for Neuroscience 2017 Annual Meeting this fall. A senior at Drake University in Des Moines, Bagnall is a 2014 graduate of Newton High School.

Bagnall will present her paper, “A Comparison of Responding for Intracranial Self-Stimulation and Food Reinforcement under Normal Conditions and with Acute d-Amphetamine Challenge” at the conference.

“It’s very exciting to be part of something that has real world value and can be applied to the health world in the future,” Bagnall said.

For the past two years, Bagnall has been hard at work in the lab at Drake, working with a group of rats to study their responses to stimuli. After implanting electrodes in the brains of the rats Bagnall’s group has been studying the rat’s responses to electrical stimuli, testing the effects of cocaine and amphetamines. William Klipec, professor of psychology at Drake, has been working on the project for years with Bagnall.

“It’s a problem that my lab has been working on for a long time, we’ve had it on the back shelf to tackle in the future, she expressed an interest so we pulled it off the shelf and put a series of experiments together to examine this,” Klipec said.

Calling Bagnall one of the most dedicated students he’s ever worked with, Klipec described her as “an extremely bright student, doing extremely bright work, that’s come to fruition.”

Understanding how the rats respond gives researchers like Bagnall and Klipec insight into how humans might respond, as well. For Bagnall, a senior at Drake this fall who plans to attend medical school, the research is a pathway towards understanding addiction.

“If you give them cocaine then it increases the amount of dopamine in the brain, it makes the rats feel good and they press the lever a lot more,” Bagnall said.

Bagnall and Klipec hope the research serves as a springboard for neuroscientists who are working on understanding the brain’s responses to addiction. Klipec credited Bagnall for her approach to the problem, calling her “the prime mover” and laying all the credit at her feet.

“I think people will be excited about the way we’re approaching this, the impact is pretty big for people who are interested in understanding neurology,” Klipec said. “We’re mainly opening doors with this paper, we haven’t closed them yet.”

Presenting her paper to the Society for Neuroscience will represent a milestone achievement for Bagnall, who’s been working on the project five days a week for the last two years.

“It’s been a long process, and it’s a commitment that you make, I’m very lucky to have had a good professor that’s flexible and was able to work with me on this project,” Bagnall said.

The work won’t end with the presentation, however, Bagnall and Klipec are continuing their research, now starting to study how the rats respond to food while they’re under the influence of cocaine and amphetamines.

While Bagnall will miss her colleagues and the daily experience of working in the lab, she’s excited that the project will continue now that she and Klipec have recruited new students to take her place in the project following graduation next year.

“We have so many great ideas that I’m sad I won’t get to follow through on, but I’m really excited that they’re going to keep it going,” Bagnall said.

Contact David Dolmage at 641-792-3121 ext. 6532 or ddolmage@newtondailynews.com