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A visual pathway with wide-field properties is required for elementary motion-detection
Lecture
Wednesday, December 23, 2015
Hour: 14:00
Location:
Gerhard M.J. Schmidt Lecture Hall
A visual pathway with wide-field properties is required for elementary motion-detection
Dr. Marion Silies
European Neuroscience Institute Gottingen, Germany
Visual motion cues are used by many animals to guide navigation through their environments. Long-standing theoretical models have made predictions about the computations that compare light signals across space and time to detect motion. Separate candidate ON and OFF pathway that can implement various algorithmic steps have been proposed in the Drosophila visual system based on connectomic and physiological approaches. However, proposed circuit elements are often not functionally required, suggesting redundant circuits at least.
Using forward genetic approaches, we identified neurons of a third visual pathway in which the first order interneurons L3 provides a key input to direction-selective T5 neurons via the medulla neuron Tm9. While neurons of this pathway are behaviorally required for OFF motion detection, their physiological properties do not line up with predicted features of motion detection. Using in vivo 2 photon calcium imaging, we show that this pathway carries sustained responses to contrast changes and exhibits wide field properties that inform elementary motion detectors about wide regions of visual space. Given that these signals are essential for elementary motion-detection, we are currently investigating the full microcircuit architecture of this OFF pathway, as well as its molecular and physiological specializations. Our goal is to understand the circuits and computations that implement behavioral responses to visual motion.
The Neuroscience of Avatars
Lecture
Wednesday, December 16, 2015
Hour: 14:00
Location:
Dolfi and Lola Ebner Auditorium
The Neuroscience of Avatars
Prof. Mark Sagar
Laboratory for Animate Technologies Auckland Bioengineering Institute The University of Auckland New Zealand
Mark Sagar is the director of the Laboratory for Animate Technologies at the Auckland Bioengineering Institute and a leading expert on creating interactive autonomously animated systems which will help defi the next generation of human-computer interaction and facial animation. He started his career building computer simulations of the human eye for virtual surgery, and later worked as the Special Projects Supervisor at Weta Digital and was involved with the creation of technology for the digital characters in blockbusters such as Avatar, King Kong, and Spiderman 2. His pioneering work in computer-generated faces was recognized with two consecutive Oscars at the 2010 and 2011 Sci-tech awards, a branch of the Academy Awards that recognizes movie science and technological achievements.
Molecular and Cellular Architecture of Social Behavior Circuits in the Mouse Brain
Lecture
Monday, December 14, 2015
Hour: 12:30
Location:
Gerhard M.J. Schmidt Lecture Hall
Molecular and Cellular Architecture of Social Behavior Circuits in the Mouse Brain
Prof. Catherine Dulac
Dept of Molecular and Cellular Biology
Harvard University Cambridge, MA
Blood sweat and tears: Social chemosignaling in human health and disease
Lecture
Tuesday, December 1, 2015
Hour: 12:30
Location:
Gerhard M.J. Schmidt Lecture Hall
Blood sweat and tears: Social chemosignaling in human health and disease
Prof. Noam Sobel
Department of Neurobiology, WIS
Most animals communicate using social chemosignals, namely chemicals emitted by one member of the species, which then produce chemical and behavioral changes in other members of the species. Such communication is prevalent in insects and terrestrial mammals, and mounting evidence implies that it is also common in human behavior, albeit primarily at a subliminal level. Human social chemosignals are responsible for a host of effects ranging from driving menstrual synchrony in women to conveying fear across individuals. Here I will describe our findings on mechanisms of human chemosignaling in both health and disease. Based on these findings I will argue that in contrast to common notions, humans are highly olfactory animals.
Rapid and context-dependent plasticity of human olfactory functions
Lecture
Sunday, September 6, 2015
Hour: 12:15
Location:
Gerhard M.J. Schmidt Lecture Hall
Rapid and context-dependent plasticity of human olfactory functions
Prof. Johan Lundstrom
Dept of Clinical Neuroscience, Karolinska Institute, Stockholm
Revisiting the functional architecture of the human brain with intracranial EEG and direct electrical stimulation of the cerebral cortex
Lecture
Monday, August 24, 2015
Hour: 14:00
Location:
Gerhard M.J. Schmidt Lecture Hall
Revisiting the functional architecture of the human brain with intracranial EEG and direct electrical stimulation of the cerebral cortex
Prof. Josef Parvizi
Neurology and Neurological Sciences, Stanford University
Munc13s - Presynaptic Regulators of Short-Term Synaptic Plasticity in Physiology and Pathology
Lecture
Sunday, August 9, 2015
Hour: 13:00
Location:
Nella and Leon Benoziyo Building for Brain Research
Munc13s - Presynaptic Regulators of Short-Term Synaptic Plasticity in Physiology and Pathology
Dr. Noa Lipstein
Dept of Molecular Neurobiology
Max-Planck Institute of Experimental Medicine
Munc13 proteins are key determinants of synaptic vesicle priming and absolutely essential for the completion of the synaptic vesicle cycle at presynaptic active zones. Munc13 function is regulated by three different Ca2+-dependent pathways, and elevations of the presynaptic Ca2+ concentration during neuronal activity leads to a Munc13-dependent increase in the synaptic vesicle priming rate, and consequently to dynamic changes in the efficacy of neurotransmission. I will describe how the Ca2+-dependent regulation of Munc13s affects synaptic signaling in intact circuits, and present the first known synaptopathy caused by a mutation in Munc13-1, which affects a recently discovered interplay between Munc13s, voltage-gated Ca2+ channels, and synaptic vesicle fusogenicity.
Exploring neuro-glio-vascular interactions through in vivo imaging of the mouse brain
Lecture
Tuesday, July 28, 2015
Hour: 12:30
Location:
Gerhard M.J. Schmidt Lecture Hall
Exploring neuro-glio-vascular interactions through in vivo imaging of the mouse brain
Jaime Grutzendler, MD
Dept of Neurology, Yale University
I will discuss several lines of research in our lab utilizing high resolution in vivo and fixed tissue imaging to explore physiological and pathological mechanisms in the brain. Specifically we will discuss recent observations regarding mechanisms of neurovascular coupling and the role of smooth muscle cells versus pericytes in vasomotor responses after neural stimulation. We will also discuss findings related to a novel mechanism of microvascular recanalization that we termed angiophagy that could have potential important roles in stroke pathogenesis. Finally we will present a new method that we developed for high resolution label-free in vivo imaging of individual cortical myelinated axons that is allowing studies of myelin development and pathology.
Hitler's psychiatrists and neuroscientists: healers and researchers turned executioners
Lecture
Tuesday, June 30, 2015
Hour: 11:30
Location:
Arthur and Rochelle Belfer Building for Biomedical Research
Hitler's psychiatrists and neuroscientists: healers and researchers turned executioners
Prof. Israel Strous
Sackler Faculty of Medicine, Tel Aviv University; Deputy Hospital Director and Director of Ambulatory Services,Beer Yaakov Mental Health Center
At the heart of Hitler's murderous machine in Nazi Germany lay several powerful and influential doctors and neuroscientists providing the energy, scientific expertise and legitimacy for the process leading up to the Holocaust. Psychiatrists arguably more than any other medical specialty played a critical role; many of them demonstrating a profound depth of involvement and commitment to the atrocities. This included for the first time in history, psychiatrists seeking to systematically exterminate their patients. Several misconceptions led to this misconduct, which will be discussed. Psychiatry during this period provides a most horrifying example of how clinical management and neuroscience may be perverted by external forces.
A neural basis for persistence in learned behavioral states
Lecture
Wednesday, June 24, 2015
Hour: 15:00
Location:
Gerhard M.J. Schmidt Lecture Hall
A neural basis for persistence in learned behavioral states
Dr. Misha Ahrens
HHMI Janelia Research Campus
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Revisiting the functional architecture of the human brain with intracranial EEG and direct electrical stimulation of the cerebral cortex
Lecture
Monday, August 24, 2015
Hour: 14:00
Location:
Gerhard M.J. Schmidt Lecture Hall
Revisiting the functional architecture of the human brain with intracranial EEG and direct electrical stimulation of the cerebral cortex
Prof. Josef Parvizi
Neurology and Neurological Sciences, Stanford University
Munc13s - Presynaptic Regulators of Short-Term Synaptic Plasticity in Physiology and Pathology
Lecture
Sunday, August 9, 2015
Hour: 13:00
Location:
Nella and Leon Benoziyo Building for Brain Research
Munc13s - Presynaptic Regulators of Short-Term Synaptic Plasticity in Physiology and Pathology
Dr. Noa Lipstein
Dept of Molecular Neurobiology
Max-Planck Institute of Experimental Medicine
Munc13 proteins are key determinants of synaptic vesicle priming and absolutely essential for the completion of the synaptic vesicle cycle at presynaptic active zones. Munc13 function is regulated by three different Ca2+-dependent pathways, and elevations of the presynaptic Ca2+ concentration during neuronal activity leads to a Munc13-dependent increase in the synaptic vesicle priming rate, and consequently to dynamic changes in the efficacy of neurotransmission. I will describe how the Ca2+-dependent regulation of Munc13s affects synaptic signaling in intact circuits, and present the first known synaptopathy caused by a mutation in Munc13-1, which affects a recently discovered interplay between Munc13s, voltage-gated Ca2+ channels, and synaptic vesicle fusogenicity.
Exploring neuro-glio-vascular interactions through in vivo imaging of the mouse brain
Lecture
Tuesday, July 28, 2015
Hour: 12:30
Location:
Gerhard M.J. Schmidt Lecture Hall
Exploring neuro-glio-vascular interactions through in vivo imaging of the mouse brain
Jaime Grutzendler, MD
Dept of Neurology, Yale University
I will discuss several lines of research in our lab utilizing high resolution in vivo and fixed tissue imaging to explore physiological and pathological mechanisms in the brain. Specifically we will discuss recent observations regarding mechanisms of neurovascular coupling and the role of smooth muscle cells versus pericytes in vasomotor responses after neural stimulation. We will also discuss findings related to a novel mechanism of microvascular recanalization that we termed angiophagy that could have potential important roles in stroke pathogenesis. Finally we will present a new method that we developed for high resolution label-free in vivo imaging of individual cortical myelinated axons that is allowing studies of myelin development and pathology.
Hitler's psychiatrists and neuroscientists: healers and researchers turned executioners
Lecture
Tuesday, June 30, 2015
Hour: 11:30
Location:
Arthur and Rochelle Belfer Building for Biomedical Research
Hitler's psychiatrists and neuroscientists: healers and researchers turned executioners
Prof. Israel Strous
Sackler Faculty of Medicine, Tel Aviv University; Deputy Hospital Director and Director of Ambulatory Services,Beer Yaakov Mental Health Center
At the heart of Hitler's murderous machine in Nazi Germany lay several powerful and influential doctors and neuroscientists providing the energy, scientific expertise and legitimacy for the process leading up to the Holocaust. Psychiatrists arguably more than any other medical specialty played a critical role; many of them demonstrating a profound depth of involvement and commitment to the atrocities. This included for the first time in history, psychiatrists seeking to systematically exterminate their patients. Several misconceptions led to this misconduct, which will be discussed. Psychiatry during this period provides a most horrifying example of how clinical management and neuroscience may be perverted by external forces.
A neural basis for persistence in learned behavioral states
Lecture
Wednesday, June 24, 2015
Hour: 15:00
Location:
Gerhard M.J. Schmidt Lecture Hall
A neural basis for persistence in learned behavioral states
Dr. Misha Ahrens
HHMI Janelia Research Campus
Contextual Processing in PTSD: neural circuits genes and sleep physiology
Lecture
Sunday, June 21, 2015
Hour: 12:30
Location:
Nella and Leon Benoziyo Building for Brain Research
Contextual Processing in PTSD: neural circuits genes and sleep physiology
Prof. Israel Liberzon
Dept of Psychiatry, University of Michigan Medical School, Ann Arbor, MI
A new approach for reversing Alzheimer's disease pathology and restoring cognition: a lesson from tumor immunotherapy?
Lecture
Tuesday, June 9, 2015
Hour: 12:30
Location:
Gerhard M.J. Schmidt Lecture Hall
A new approach for reversing Alzheimer's disease pathology and restoring cognition: a lesson from tumor immunotherapy?
Dr. Michal Schwartz
Department of Neurobiology, WIS
Studies over more than a decade have highlighted a pivotal role for the immune system in maintaining life-long brain plasticity. Such activity is achieved through the brain’s epithelial borders, comprised of the brain’s choroid plexus epithelium, which serves as a selective and educative gateway for the entry of healing immune cells to the brain. Activity of this gateway is dependent on the immune system, which almost paradoxically, dysfunctions in brain aging and neurodegenerative diseases, when this gateway is most greatly needed. Recently, we discovered that regulatory pathways that keep the normal and young immune system under control become limiting factors under Alzheimer’s disease pathology; breaking this immune regulatory pathway in a well-controlled way arrests AD and restores cognitive ability.
Goal-directed navigation with 3D neural compasses
Lecture
Tuesday, June 2, 2015
Hour: 12:30
Location:
Gerhard M.J. Schmidt Lecture Hall
Goal-directed navigation with 3D neural compasses
Arseny Finkelstein
Dept of Neurobiology, WIS
Although animals and humans move daily through complex three-dimensional (3D) environments, practically nothing is known about the encoding of 3D head direction in the brain. Moreover, very little is known about how neural circuits represent the location or direction of spatial goals – which is essential for goal-directed navigation.
In the first part of the talk, I will present the first neural recordings of 3D head-direction cells from the hippocampal formation of flying and crawling bats, and will describe the functional organization and the surprising properties of these neurons. By using the head-direction system as an example, I will also discuss several theoretical considerations for the existence of both pure and conjunctive population codes in the brain.
In the second part, I will present our new findings that suggest the existence of goal-direction and goal-proximity signals in the bat hippocampus – a vectorial representation that could support goal-directed navigation.
Visual search in the archer fish
Lecture
Tuesday, May 19, 2015
Hour: 12:30
Location:
Gerhard M.J. Schmidt Lecture Hall
Visual search in the archer fish
Prof. Ronen Segev
Life Sciences Dept,
Ben Gurion University of the Negev
From detecting food to locating lurking predators, visual search -- the ability to find an object of interest against a background -- needs to be accurate and fast to ensure survival. In mammals, this led to the development of a parallel search mode, pop-out, which enables fast detection time that is not dependent on the number of distracting objects. Although it may be beneficial to most animals, pop-out behavior has been observed only in mammals, where its neural correlates are found as early as V1 in contextually modulated cells that encode aspects of saliency. I will describe our recent findings of pop-out visual search in the archer fish and discuss possible implications about universality of visual search among vertebrates.
Mapping computations to circuits: Neural coding transformation in the thalamocortical circuit during active sensation
Lecture
Thursday, May 7, 2015
Hour: 14:00
Location:
Nella and Leon Benoziyo Building for Brain Research
Mapping computations to circuits: Neural coding transformation in the thalamocortical circuit during active sensation
Dr. Diego Gutnisky
Janelia Research Campus, Ashburn, VA, USA
One fundamental question in neuroscience remains largely unanswered: how are computations implemented by structured neural circuits? Over the last fifty years we have learned how sensory, motor and cognitive information is represented in different regions of the mammalian brain. Anatomical studies are beginning to reveal precisely structured neural circuits, including stereotyped circuit motifs across brain areas subserving different functions. However, linking physiology and detailed anatomy remains elusive in most cases. We know little about activity in specific cell types, the nodes of the circuit diagram, in behaving animals.
In our lab we study how tactile information is represented in different brain circuits in the mice vibrissal system. We train mice to move their whiskers to judge the location of an object presented in one of several locations and record extra- and intracellularly from specific neural types in this circuit. I’ll present recent results showing how tactile information is processed and transformed by specific neural types and circuits as it ascends from the sensory periphery to cortex.
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