By Laura López González
Dept. of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences postdoctoral scholar Alexandra Klein, PhD, claims her first prize check after winning this year's UCSF Postdoc Slam. To her right is content judge and San Francisco State University College of Science and Engineering Associate Dean Teaster Baird, Jr, PhD. [Photo: Noah Berger/UCSF]
With hundreds watching, a nervous Alexandra Klein, PhD, stepped into the spotlight and, pausing, took a deep, cleansing breath.
“I already feel much calmer,” the UC San Francisco Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences postdoctoral scholar told an audience at UCSF’s Mission Bay campus last week as part of the university’s Postdoc Slam. Klein is a postdoc scholar in the Kheirbek Lab, where she studies the effects of bodily signals on emotional behaviors and how these interoceptive signals are processed in the brain.
The competition, hosted annually by the Office for Postdoctoral Scholars and the Graduate Division, happens annually during National Postdoc Appreciation Week, which honors the often unseen work of postdoctoral scholars across the U.S. As part of the contest, 10 contestants beat out a field of several dozen applicants for the chance to translate their research into three-minute presentations for a general audience.
Taking a deep breath relaxes us. It’s why many of us do it when, let’s say, we’re about to present a talk, or as Klein joked, “When you’re mad at the Cybertruck driver who just cut you off.”
For millennia, people have understood that our breath is linked to our emotions but just why this works biologically remains a mystery: What happens in the brain of an anxious person taking a long deep breath? Klein’s research asks.
Modern technology isn’t designed to answer this question – at least not in humans. So Klein turned to the laboratory.
Watch the winning talk: Alexandra Klein, PhD, came in first place at this year’s Postdoc Slam. Watch her award-winning talk, titled “Take a Deep Breath: Understanding the Neural Basis of How Respiration Influences Emotions.”
Research to transform health care, society
This year, UCSF Postdoc Slam talks covered cutting-edge research aimed at solving problems such as chronic pain, poor maternal health care for Black pregnant people and food insecurity. Presentations were judged on clarity and the ability to convey their work and spark curiosity.
“At UCSF and around the world, scientists are tackling some of the most vexing health challenges of our time, from pioneering cancer therapies to gene editing technologies to uncovering new treatments for neurodegenerative diseases,” UCSF’s Vice Provost of Student Academic Affairs and Dean of the Graduate Division, Nicquet Blake, PhD, told dozens of attendees and hundreds of remote viewers. “Their research holds immense potential to transform health care and improve lives.”
Blake continued: “Yet, in today's society where skepticism towards science and scientists has grown, the ability to communicate the importance of the work that you do as a scientist has never been more crucial.”
‘The simplest way to deal with a Cybertruck’
To study the effect of breathing on anxious states, Klein monitored the brain activity of mice and compared it to their breathing and behavior. Her preliminary data found that as breathing patterns slowed, brain activity in regions of the brain associated with anxiety did too, fluctuating at the same rhythm – suggesting that breathing might impact signals in the rodents' brains that changed their mood and behavior.
The findings could one day lead to the development of specific breathing therapies for mental health conditions, expanding treatment options, she explained.
“But for you,” she told a packed auditorium, “it’s important to remember the simplest way to deal with a Cybertruck that will cut you off is to take a deep breath,” she said as she dramatically exhaled.
Klein’s gift of clear communication and a thoughtful, circular narrative won her first place at the Postdoc Slam. She walked away with $4,000.
The Postdoc Slam 2024 winners from left to right are Colin Hoy, PhD (third place, tie), Sonia Nocera, PhD (second place and People’s Choice Award), Alicer K. Andrew, PhD (third place, tie), and Alexandra Klein (first place), PhD. [Photo: Noah Berger/UCSF]
Find out more about this year's Postdoc Slam
About UCSF Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences
The UCSF Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences and the Langley Porter Psychiatric Institute are among the nation's foremost resources in the fields of child, adolescent, adult, and geriatric mental health. Together they constitute one of the largest departments in the UCSF School of Medicine and the UCSF Weill Institute for Neurosciences, with a mission focused on research (basic, translational, clinical), teaching, patient care, and public service.
UCSF Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences conducts its clinical, educational, and research efforts at a variety of locations in Northern California, including the UCSF Nancy Friend Pritzker Psychiatry Building; UCSF Langley Porter Psychiatric Hospital; UCSF Medical Centers at Parnassus Heights, Mission Bay, and Mount Zion; UCSF Benioff Children’s Hospitals in San Francisco and Oakland; Zuckerberg San Francisco General Hospital and Trauma Center; the San Francisco VA Health Care System; UCSF Fresno; and numerous community-based sites around the San Francisco Bay Area.
About the UCSF Weill Institute for Neurosciences
The UCSF Weill Institute for Neurosciences, established by the extraordinary generosity of Joan and Sanford I. "Sandy" Weill, brings together world-class researchers with top-ranked physicians to solve some of the most complex challenges in the human brain.
The UCSF Weill Institute leverages UCSF’s unrivaled bench-to-bedside excellence in the neurosciences. It unites three UCSF departments—Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, Neurology, and Neurological Surgery—that are highly esteemed for both patient care and research, as well as the Neuroscience Graduate Program, a cross-disciplinary alliance of nearly 100 UCSF faculty members from 15 basic-science departments, as well as the UCSF Institute for Neurodegenerative Diseases, a multidisciplinary research center focused on finding effective treatments for Alzheimer’s disease, frontotemporal dementia, Parkinson’s disease, and other neurodegenerative disorders.
About UCSF
The University of California, San Francisco (UCSF) is exclusively focused on the health sciences and is dedicated to promoting health worldwide through advanced biomedical research, graduate-level education in the life sciences and health professions, and excellence in patient care. UCSF Health, which serves as UCSF’s primary academic medical center, includes top-ranked specialty hospitals and other clinical programs, and has affiliations throughout the Bay Area.
