Neuroscience Program
First 100 matches found
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New Student Orientation for Graduate Students beginning in the Summer and Fall of 2019. Lunch will be served along with discussions of expectations, milestones, registration. Panels with current students to understand a student perspective will be included as well.
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Fall 2019 Annual Retreat of the Neuroscience Program Faculty and Students. Luncheon,
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Network science describes principles by which large numbers of pairwise relationships between brain regions can be illuminated. Examples will be given of descriptions of collections of brain regions into subnetworks or communities, individual differences in community structure, how community structure relates to disease, and how it might be changed through experience.
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While there is general agreement about which patches of cortex are involved in reading words, there is extensive debate about the type of cognitive comptutation carried out in those patches.
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There are significant concerns about the reproducibility of scientific results across many fields including neuroimaging. This talk will discuss the source of these problems and outline a set of approaches to improve the reproducibility of neuroimaging research.
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The last few years has seen rapid progress in the discovery of genes underlying risk for severe mental illness, Research in the Ament lab aims to trace mechanisms from genes to brain to mental illness through human genetics, stem cell models of brain development, and single-cell genomics.
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There has been a surge in technologies to observe how genes and proteins change in the brain during disease. I will describe a new method, DART (drugs acutely restricted by tethering), to rapidly restrict drugs to genetically defined neurons in behaving mice. The approach offers a new way to establish causal circuit and molecular substrates of normal and aberrant behavior.
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In this talk I will describe ongoing work focused on how the experiences of both mothers and fathers can induce epigenetic, neurobiological and behavioral effects and the interactive and multigenerational consequences of these effects.
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This talk will focus on the role of the gastrin releasing peptide receptor (GRPR), the first itch-specific receptor identified in the spinal cord, in itch transmission. He will also discuss about the differences between itch and pain sensations.
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We study the neuroimmune mechanism of neurodegenerative, autoimmune, and infectious diseases using mouse models in the context of disease contributing factors such as stress, steroid hormone imbalance, and aging.
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Spontaneous physical activity (SPA) behavior, or the drive to move, is initiated by brain centers and could therefore be therapeutically targeted. A major goal of our work is to understand the brain circuitry driving SPA, so that obesity therapies based on SPA can be considered.
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Enjoy refreshments, good music, and socializing with faculty, staff, graduate students, research scientists, postdocs, and those associated with the Neuroscience Program to wish a Happy New Year before the end of the fall semester. Donations to a food bank are being collected by the NSO, Neuroscience Student Organization.
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While many animals use the earth's magnetic field to navigate their environment, much remains unknown about its molecular and cellular basis. We will present insights into the behavioral, cellular, and molecular basis for magnetoreception yielded by the tiny nematode worm, C. elegans.
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To produce adaptive behaviors, neurons must maintain robust intrinsic excitability. However, the genetic networks that enable intrinsic neuronal homeostasis remain mostly unknown. The Ben-Shahar lab explores the molecular processes that maintain neuronal robustness at different timescale by using the power of Drosophila neurogenetics.
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The right insular cortex is a critical component of a salience network that is thought to mediate interactions between other brain networks involved in externally oriented attention and internally oriented cognition. How these systems reconfigure with development is a critical question for cognitive neuroscience.
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Identification of foods and nutrients that promote human cognitive function has the potential to have a lasting impact on quality of life for all populations. his presentation will highlight the links between macular lutein status and cognitive control and relational memory in children and adults.
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We examine the brain processes involved in interactive vocal behaviors, focusing on forebrain circuitry in the songbird and the rodent, and we relate these to emerging human studies that employ a range of methods to manipulate and monitor cortical areas relevant for speech.
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Reproduction is governed by the coordinated secretion of hormones from the brain and pituitary. These hormones, GnRH and LH, are released in discrete "pulses", whose unique pattern is regulated by numerous factors. Mechanisms by which endocrine and brain signals modulate reproductive hormone pulses in mouse models will be discussed.
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Brain Awareness Day is a fun “science fair” held by the Neuroscience Program at the Orpheum Children’s Science Museum every year for the local community during late spring.
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Restoring lost function after spinal cord injury or other types of CNS injuries is one of the major challenges of contemporary neuroscience. Functional deficits after such injuries are primarily due to a disruption of axonal connections. I will present our findings how to promote axon regeneration and how to activate spared yet silent connections after injury.
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The Neuroscience End of Year Reception provides those within and those affiliated with the program to join for a reception and ceremony honoring faculty, students, volunteers by the program, graduate student organization, and various outside award organizations. The event includes a State of the Program address with the most recent year's review and future direction.
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Both computational & experimental results in single neurons & small networks demonstrate that similar network function can result from quite disparate sets of neuronal & network paramaters. We show that neurons with many different kinds of ion channels can smoothly move through different mechanisms in generating their activity patterns, thus extending their dynamic range.
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We examine the brain processes involved in interactive vocal behaviors, focusing on forebrain circuitry in the songbird and the rodent, and we relate these to emerging human studies that employ a range of methods to manipulate and monitor cortical areas relevant for speech.
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Immune cells and their derived molecules have major impact on brain function. Our results demonstrate that meningeal space, surrounding the brain, is the site where CNS-associated immune activity takes place. Meningeal lymphatics, overall, may serve as a novel therapeutic target for neurological disorders.
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Genomic imprinting in the mammalian brain is hypothesized to regulate aspects of social behavior. These studies reveal regions of the mouse brain containing cell subpopulations with dominant maternal allele expression of dopa decarboxylase (Ddc), a monoamine neurotransmitter synthesis enzyme.
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Connectome-based predictive modeling is powerful approach to model individual differences in phenotypes using fMRI data. One limitation of this approach is that models are complex, making it challenging to target these models with interventions. Here, I will discuss our recent work in creating these models and developing potential approaches to target them.
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From birth to adulthood, an animal’s nervous system undergoes considerable expansion. Through serial electron microscopy and functional imaging studies, we reveal several developmental principles that govern the structural growth and functional maturation across the wiring diagram of C. elegans.
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Reproduction is governed by the coordinated secretion of hormones from the brain & pituitary. The hormones, GnRH & LH, are released in discrete "pulses", whose unique pattern is regulated by many factors. Mechanisms by which endocrine & neural signals modulate reproductive hormone pulses in normal & disease states will be discussed, focusing on findings from mouse models.
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Martha Gillette presented in a paper in 1987, "Oscillations in VP secretion and neuronal firing rate potentially represent separate modes by which the SCN transmit time information to other brain regions. The electrical oscillation may relay time-of-day by efferent neuronal output along a limited number of specialized circuits..."
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Compromised protein homeostasis underlies accumulation of plaques and tangles in Alzheimer’s disease (AD); Our findings reveal that the presynaptic terminal is particularly vulnerable and represents a critical site for manifestation of initial AD etiology.
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Thyroid hormone is key to every process in the body and its regulation is disrupted during illness, obesity and weight loss. Our laboratory hypothesizes the neuroendocrine thyrotropin-releasing hormone (TRH) neurons are the integrator of peripheral signals to regulate thyroid hormone levels and we are using a combination of genetic mouse models and chemogenetics.
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Pharmaceutical manipulation of the hormones glucagon-like peptide-1 (GLP-1) and leptin are viable treatment options for obesity and metabolic diseases. Data presented will show a unique contribution of astrocytes within the brainstem in mediating the food intake and body weight suppressive effects of GLP-1 and leptin.
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Achieving axon regeneration and restoring function after CNS injuries is one of the major challenges of contemporary neuroscience. I will discuss our new results about how to promote axon regeneration and enhance the function of regenerated axons in adult CNS.
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Oxytocin is often considered to be a peptide that is important for behaviors related to social approach such as pair bonding or stress buffering. However, sometimes oxytocin can increase anxiety. Our work shows that these diverse effects are mediated by distinct but overlapping neural circuits.
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There is growing evidence that puberty is another organizational period with long lasting effects on brain and behavior. This talk will provide an overview of human structural MRI studies on sex differences in normative brain development across adolescence. Evidence for a specific link between pubertal maturation and developmental changes will be discussed.
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How can nervous systems be both strikingly flexible and remarkably robust, and how do these phenomena simultaneously give rise to widespread similarity and incredible diversity in animal behavior? We are using charismatic poison frogs as model system to ask these questions.
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Cognitive mapping allows us to build internal representations of the world, and is critical to episodic memory and visualization. I explore the potential evolutionary origins of cognitive mapping, to show how the circuitry for basic foraging decision can be straightforwardly expanded for affective valuation and cognitive map construction in the foraging simulation, ASIMOV.
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We're going to look at a set of cross-species parallel tasks where we will ask whether mice, rats, and humans are sensitive to sunk costs (spoiler alert: they are) and what they do to avoid them.
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The talk is about utilizing novel transgenic mouse models to reveal the circuitry involved in the onset and chronicity of pain states. The Burton lab works on factors like age, sex, and diabetes to understand their interaction with the development of pain, depression, and other comorbidities.
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GABA(A) receptor subtypes that incorporate a delta subunit protein and mediate tonic inhibition are preferentially modulated by neuroactive hormone metabolites and low to moderate doses of alcohol. During this seminar, I’ll share work supporting a role for this GABA(A) receptor subtype in sex-specific alcohol related behaviors and the consequences of binge drinking.
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Rats and humans alike readily navigate to destinations we have previously visited. This seminar will discuss how representations of those places are stored in the hippocampal formation and then utilized to guide future behavior by transforming that information through cortico-striatal pathways.
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A better understanding of genetic epilepsy mechanisms is needed to develop precision therapies for patients. To shed light on these mechanisms, we are combining mouse and human pluripotent stem cell models. I will discuss our work modeling genetic epilepsies (SCN8A, PCDH19 and MECP2) using human pluripotent stem cell-derived 2-D neuronal and brain organoid cultures.
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Real-time fMRI neurofeedback will be introduced and data from our group using this technique to treat and study mental illness will be presented.
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This seminar will present recent evidence supporting the melancortin 3 receptor as a novel pharmacological target for both anorexia related disorders and obesity.
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Dr. Poe will present evidence and conceptual models built on research for how we put our emotions to rest during sleep.
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We study circuit-level mechanisms in sensorimotor pathways for forelimb motor control. I’ll present results from optogenetic and electrophysiological studies of cellular connections and cortical correlates relating to manual dexterity.
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Multiple lines of evidence support the hypothesis that the cannabinoids, THC and CBD, do more than act on specific GPCRs. Recent evidence in my laboratory points to how cannabinoids drive broad changes in the lipidome with data suggesting that many of the changes are dependent on the enzyme NAPE-PLD.
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We found precise responses to orientations in mouse visual cortex in 50,000 neuron recordings. To understand neural recordings from more complex experiments, we developed an embedding algorithm called Rastermap, which qualitatively and quantitatively outperforms t-SNE and UMAP.
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As the most numerous non-neuronal cells, astrocytes tile the entire central nervous system and play important roles in regulating neural circuits and behavior. Our recent studies have revealed context-specific responses of astrocytes to various challenges that can be exploited for neurological disorders.
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Gestational exposure to environmental toxins and socioeconomic stressors are epidemiologically linked to neurodevelopmental disorders with strong male-bias, such as autism. We modeled these prenatal risk factors in mice, by co-exposing pregnant dams to an environmental pollutant and limited-resource stress, which robustly dysregulated the maternal immune system.
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The central goal of our lab is to study general principles of how social behavior is regulated in the brain. We study how neural circuits regulate social behavioral decisions within a single brain as well as how emergent inter-brain neural properties arise from social interactions between individuals.
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Successful adaptation to changing environmental conditions depends on the ability of one's memory to flexibly guide decision processes. Possible roles for the hippocampus and lateral habenula in this critical function will be discussed, as well as their implications for our understanding of the neural mechanisms underlying disorders of behavioral flexibility/eg-depression
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This seminar will present data that increasing activity of ACh inputs to the hippocampus selectively induces stress-dependent behaviors, including increased susceptibility to social stress. Our working hypothesis-ACh signaling in hippocampus may be relevant to negative encoding bias, that is, increased focus on negative events, experienced by individuals with depression.
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Research in the Correa lab has identified estrogen-sensitive neurons that regulate physical activity, bone health, temperature, and torpor in mice. These studies provide new mechanistic insights into how the brain mediates the multifaceted effects of estrogens on physiology.
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This seminar will summarize recent work examining loudness perception and plasticity in the central auditory system and how pathological changes to these processes contribute to auditory perceptual disruptions in rodent models of hearing loss and neurodevelopmental disorders.
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Erin O'Leary - Bonthius Lab; Taylor Jorgensen - Gillette, M Lab; Muxiao Wang - Rudolph Lab; Keyin Li - Sweedler Lab
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Grace Lyu - Rudolph Lab; Alex Armstrong - Vlasov Lab; Ashley Otero - Antonson Lab; Selin Aktuna - Best Lab; Shannon Berneche - Sweedler Lab
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This workshop will examine the rise of workplace bullying and its’ association with blame, privilege, and victimization.
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Vascular changes in the brain can impact the development and course of depression in older adults. This seminar will summarize the neurobiological factors that place Black older adults at risk for vascular depression, which is a more disabling and treatment resistant subtype of depression.
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Bats modify directional aim & timing of sonar calls as they inspect targets and obstacles, & importantly, these inspection behaviors provide a direct readout of their attention to objects. Multichannel recordings from the midbrain superior colliculus and hippocampus of the free-flying bat reveal that neural coding of space is dynamic and modulated by sonar-guided attention
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The spatial organization of cells and molecules is closely tied to their functional network. My group develops a multiscale, multimodal imaging platform to study how individual molecules and cells work together to perform systems-level functions. Our platform can be used to study the spatial architecture of brains at high resolution.
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In this seminar I will discuss our recent work aimed at understaning how behaviorally meaningful stimuli are encoded within ensembles of hippocampal neurons, and how these representations are modified by learning. Specifically, I will present work on how the mouse dentate gyrus discriminates olfactory information through learning, and how the the ventral hippocampus is org
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It is now recognized that peripheral signals generated during nutrient digestion play a pivotal role in reinforcing past and shaping future behaviors. In this lecture I will present data supporting the primary role of subliminal nutritional signals in driving food reinforcement and discuss implications for current models of reinforcement learning.
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Animals live in a multisensory world and use different sensory channels to communicate during crucial behavioral contexts. I will discuss how an African cichlid fish uses visual, acoustic, chemosensory, and mechanosensory communication during social interactions, and how these senses may be modulated by an individual's reproductive and hormonal state.
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The seminar will introduce a common mechanism underlying these diseases: the redistribution of microtubule associated protein tau (MAPT) from the axon into the somatodendritic compartments of neurons and further into dendritic spines, causing loss of AMPA receptors in spines.
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The mentoring relationship between the advisor and graduate student is a central part of graduate education. I will explore tools for developing a strong mentoring relationship and navigating issues if they arise.
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Exposure to inflammation during critical developmental windows can disrupt neural circuitry formation and function, increasing the risk of neurodevelopmental disorders. Using maternal viral infection, my lab investigates how microbial, immune, and microglial signaling might underlie the etiologies of these disorders.
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Here, I will describe how we use machine learning to extract visual attributes represented by neurons and show that neurons may act as “similarity machines," signaling the distance between input signals and their encoded attributes.
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Cognitive processes can have profound effects on sensory experience. In this lecture I will discuss our recent electrophysiology findings revealing that prefrontal cortex is highly sensitive to behavioral errors when task rules are updated. We will also provide evidence that this engagement leads to rapid plasticity in sensory cortices altering perceptual performance.
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Sex hormones are powerful neuromodulators of learning and memory. This talk highlights recent findings from the Jacobs Lab suggesting that neuroendocrine factors rapidly and dynamically influence the human brain over the lifecourse.
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Information flow in the cortex is classically considered as feedforward-hierarchical computation. However, recent findings have started to reveal rather parallel and distributed processing. Here, I will discuss our work studying parallel sensory pathways across the primary and higher auditory cortices in extracting complex sound features.
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Brain's can be modeled as functional networks, where interregional connections and their weights are estimated as a correlations. Here I will present an approach for exactly decomposing these connections (edges) into their time-varying contributions. This approach yields framewise estimates of networks across time and can be used to estimate the novel construct of "edge fu