Southern African Neuroscience Society

Tanya Calvey has a Ph.D. in neuroscience and is a lecturer in the School of Anatomical Sciences, University of the Witwatersrand. Tanya researches translational neuropsychopharmacology and addiction medicine. She integrates human neuroimaging, molecular biology and neurohistology findings from her lab to guide her work in the field of drug treatment and prevention policy. Tanya is also actively involved in developing neuroscience in Africa. She is the Chair of the Southern African Neuroscience Society, the founder of the Wits Cortex Club, the course coordinator of the new BHSc Honours in Neuroscience at Wits, a governing council member of the Society of Neuroscientists of Africa (SONA), the African Representative for the WHO Network of Early Career Professionals working in Addiction Medicine (NECPAM) and the Chair of the International Brain Research Organisation (IBRO) nominating committee.

For me SANS is the blueprint of neuroscience in Africa and how the rest of the African researchers can level up to international standards of research. SANS is also the link to other international neuroscience organization i.e. IBRO and SONA. The ultimate goal of neuroscience is to mimic neurological disorders in animal models in order to understand them at a molecular and behavioral level. This aids post graduate students to develop analytical skills, research skills and independent thinking skills. These skills are pivotal for the sustenance of research nationally and internationally and also to encourage collaboration. SANS plays a central role in all these expertise.

Dr Rachael Dangarembizi is a Lecturer and neuroscientist in the Department of Human Biology and the Neuroscience Institute at the University of Cape Town whose main research interest is neuroimmune responses to fungal infections. Her current research focuses on the inflammatory response to Cryptococcus neoformans infection in the brain. A strong believer in the capability of women in neuroscience, Rachael is actively involved in promoting diversity and capacity building in African neuroscience. She is an African ambassador of the ALBA network who is passionate about improving neuroscience education in Africa. She teaches neuroscience in different Universities in Sub-Saharan Africa and also mentors postgraduate students in her lab at UCT.

Sahba Besharati is a neuropsychologist and senior lecturer in cognitive neuroscience at the Department of Psychology at the University of the Witwatersrand (Wits). Dr Besharati’s research specialises in the area of human social and affective neuroscience. Her research integrates neuroimaging, neuropsychological and experimental methods to investigate self-consciousness, emotion and social cognition. Sahba has been actively involved in both capacity building in the neurosciences and making research around the brain and behaviour accessible and interesting for a wider public audience. She currently serves on the transformation committee on the SANS executive committee.

There are many reasons why neuroscience is a fascinating field. It makes use of a variety of rapidly evolving tools and techniques to study one of the most complex structures that we know of – the brain. It spans multiple disciplines, including physiology, biochemistry, genetics, neuroimaging, psychology and statistics, to investigate the brain and behaviour from a macro through to a micro level. It allows collaborations with individuals around the world united in an attempt to research neurological and psychiatric disorders that cause significant harm to many individuals. It is a dynamic field where new research constantly leads to yet more questions. However, to me, neuroscience represents a beautiful merger of humanities and sciences. We try to decipher how the traits that make us human – motivation, language, empathy, social interactions and much more besides – are encoded and processed in our brains in both health and disease.

De Wet Wolmarans joined the Department of Pharmacology at the Potchefstroom Campus of the North-West University as pharmacologist and behavioural neuroscientist in 2007. Here his interests into the so-called ‘abnormality’ of some naturalistic phenotypes of animal behaviour grew, a theme that formed the core focus of both his M.Sc. (2011) and Ph.D. (2015) studies. Being interested in the vast cognitive divide that separate human from animal, his research focuses on the psychobiological mechanisms and processes that contribute to the manifestation of what we perceive to be abnormal behaviour. In the 5 years since he obtained his Ph.D., De Wet has trained 15 post-graduate students in behavioural neuroscience in various roles and has taken part in numerous international collaborations. He has also published extensively in international accredited journals. He was elected to the executive committee of SANS in 2020, where he aims to assist members to increase the impact of SANS on a global stage, actively participate in the dissemination of knowledge and skills training among SANS members, broaden the extent to which basic neuroscience and pharmacology can contribute to the goals of the Society, and participate in opening up academic and research opportunities for young individuals with an interest in the fields of neuroscience and neuropsychopharmacology.

Dr Simo Zulu has a PhD in Human Physiology and is a senior lecturer for Physiology in the Medical programme at the Nelson Mandela University. He is a member of the SANS executive committee. His research interests are in the field of translational neuroscience where he aims understanding the pathophysiology of Neuroinfectious diseases, particularly HIV-induced neuropathogenesis.

Dr Dorit Hockman did her undergraduate and MSc at the University of Cape Town (UCT). For her PhD at the University of Cambridge where she explored the evolution and development of vertebrate hypoxia-sensitive cells. In 2013, Dorit joined Trinity College (Oxford) to perform research into neural crest evolution. Dorit is now a lecturer at UCT, where she explores gene regulation during human brain maturation, supported by a Royal Society/African Academy of Sciences FLAIR Fellowship. Dorit assists with the Outreach and Transformation Portfolios on the SANS Exco.

Development and application of translational animal models of human psychiatric disorders, specifically major depression, schizophrenia, posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD) and addiction, using rodent and zebra fish models. These models I then use in identifying new biological targets as well as in the drug discovery process. I also have a keen interest in ethnopharmacology, especially exploring the psychopharmacology of complementary an adjunctive medicines.