Demi Brizee awarded Thesis Prize for Biology

Demi Brizee awarded Thesis Prize for Biology

Demi Brizee has been awarded the Young Talent Thesis Prize for Biology for her master thesis written for the Research Master in Neuroscience, titled ‘Activity-dependence of parvalbumin interneuron myelination.’ The prize was awarded by the Royal Holland Society of Sciences and Humanities (Koninklijke Hollandsche Maatschappij der Wetenschappen; www.khmw.nl) and was sponsored by Enza Zaden.

This work described how cell-specific activation of parvalbumin-positive interneurons results in increased myelination of these cells in the cerebral cortex. Surprisingly, the increase in the number of myelin segments was accompanied by a corresponding change in axonal morphology. This works shows that, even in adult age, the brain remains plastic in various manners.

The thesis work was performed under supervision of Prof. dr. Steven Kushner and has been published in the Journal of Neuroscience. 

The prize was awarded on the 25th of November, 2019, in Haarlem, The Netherlands.

Stedehouder J*, Brizee D*, Shpak G, Kushner SA (2018) Activity-dependent myelination of parvalbumin interneurons mediated by axonal morphological plasticity. J Neurosci 38:3631–3631


(Photo by Hilde de Wolf