All events, All years

How the brain transforms sensory input into action

Lecture
Date:
Tuesday, February 21, 2023
Hour: 12:30 - 13:30
Location:
Prof. Tom Mrsic-Flogel
|
Sainsbury Wellcome Centre, University College London, UK

Cerebral Cortex Connectomics

Lecture
Date:
Tuesday, February 14, 2023
Hour: 12:30 - 13:30
Location:
Gerhard M.J. Schmidt Lecture Hall
Prof. Moritz Helmstaedter
|
Dept of Connectomics Max Planck Institute for Brain Research Frankfurt

Dept of Connectomics Max Planck Institute for Brain Research Frankfurt

Mapping brainstem nuclei structure and connectivity in health and disease 

Lecture
Date:
Tuesday, February 7, 2023
Hour: 12:30 - 13:30
Location:
Gerhard M.J. Schmidt Lecture Hall
Dr. Marta Bianciardi
|
Radiology, Harvard Medical School Martinos Center for Biomedical Imaging, MGH

Brainstem nuclei in humans play a crucial role in vital functions, such as arousal, autonomic homeostasis, sensory and motor relay, nociception, and sleep and have been implicated in a vast array of brain pathologies, including disorders of consciousness, sleep disorders, autonomic disorders, pain, Parkinson’s disease and other motor disorders. Yet, an in vivo delineation of most human brainstem nuclei location and connectivity using conventional imaging has been elusive because of limited sensitivity and contrast for detecting these small regions using standard neuroimaging methods. In this talk, Dr. Bianciardi will present the probabilistic atlas and connectome of 31 brainstem nuclei of the arousal, motor, autonomic and sensory systems developed by her team in healthy living humans using structural, functional and diffusion-based MRI at 7 Tesla. She will also show the translatability of 7 Tesla connectivity results to conventional 3 Tesla imaging. Dr Bianciardi will conclude her seminar by presenting the first translational application of the brainstem nuclei atlas to investigate arousal and motor mechanisms in traumatic coma and premanifest synucleinopathy.

Active vision and vision for action

Lecture
Date:
Thursday, February 2, 2023
Hour: 12:30 - 13:30
Location:
Gerhard M.J. Schmidt Lecture Hall
Prof. Daniel Kerschensteiner
|
Washington University School of Medicine St. Louis

 Vision is an active sense in which an animal's gaze and pupil shape the content of the retinal image. In the first part of my talk, I will discuss how the viewing strategies of mice align with the neural architecture of their visual system to accomplish an essential visual task: predation. In the second part of my talk, I will compare the hunting behavior of mice to that of a specialized predator, similar in size but distant in evolution, and present our initial insights into the organization of visual information in this animal. Finally, I will present ongoing work indicating that the pupillary reflex arc implements a more complex stimulus-response function than previously thought. I will discuss the underlying neural mechanisms and potential purpose and show conservation from mice to humans. 

The development and molecular mechanisms of crystal-forming cells

Lecture
Date:
Wednesday, February 1, 2023
Hour: 10:00 - 11:00
Location:
Arthur and Rochelle Belfer Building for Biomedical Research
Dr. Dvir Gur
|
Departments of Molecular Genetics

My adventures in the rat interactive foraging facility (RIFF)

Lecture
Date:
Tuesday, January 31, 2023
Hour: 12:30 - 13:30
Location:
Gerhard M.J. Schmidt Lecture Hall
Prof. Eli Nelken
|
ELSC-The Hebrew University of Jerusalem

We developed an arena (called colloquially the RIFF) for jointly studying behavior and neural activity in freely-behaving rats. The RIFF operates as a state machine, allowing us to implement a large number of different behaviors as Markov Decision Processes and therefore to analyze much of the data within the theoretical framework of reinforcement learning. In the studies I will show here, we recorded neural activity from auditory cortex while rats performed auditory-guided behavior. We observed an intricate interplay between behavior and neural activity that was much richer than we expected.

Naturalistic approaches for studying social interactions, communication and language at cellular scale

Lecture
Date:
Tuesday, January 24, 2023
Hour: 12:30 - 13:30
Location:
Gerhard M.J. Schmidt Lecture Hall
Prof. Ziv Williams
|
Center for Nervous System Repair Harvard Medical School, Boston MA

Social interactions are remarkably dynamic, requiring individuals to understand not only how their behavior may affect others but also how others may respond in return. In humans, social interactions are also often dominated by processes such as language and theory of mind which allow us to communicate complex thoughts and beliefs. Understanding the basic cellular processes that underlie social behavior or by which individuals communicate, however, has remained a challenge. Here, I describe naturalistic approaches developed in animals and humans that aim of investigating these questions. First, by developing an ethologically based group task in three-interacting rhesus macaques, I describe representations of other’s behavior by neurons in the prefrontal cortex, reflecting the other’s identities, their interactions, actions, and outcomes. I also show how these cells collectively represent the interaction between specific group members and how they enable mutually beneficial social behavior. Second, by recording from neurons in the human prefrontal cortex during language-based tasks, I describe neurons that reliably encode information about others’ beliefs across richly varying scenarios and that distinguish self- from other-belief-related representations. By further following their encoding dynamics, I also describe how these cells represent the contents of the others’ beliefs and predict whether they are true or false. Finally, I describe how these cell ensembles track linguistic information during natural speech processing and how language can be used to ask specific questions about the single-cellular constructs that underlie social reasoning. Together, these studies reveal cellular mechanisms for interactive social behavior in animals and humans and highlight the prospective use of naturalistic approaches in social neuroscience.

Rapid learning (and unlearning) in the human brain

Lecture
Date:
Thursday, January 19, 2023
Hour: 14:00 - 15:00
Location:
Gerhard M.J. Schmidt Lecture Hall
Prof. Nitzan Censor
|
School of Psychological Sciences & Sagol School of Neuroscience Tel Aviv University

A plethora of studies have pointed to sensory plasticity in the adult visual system, documenting long-term improvements in perception. Such perceptual learning is enabled by repeated practice, inducing use-dependent plasticity in early visual areas and their readouts. I will discuss results from our lab challenging the fundamental assumption in low-level perceptual learning that only 'practice makes perfect', indicating that brief reactivations of visual memories induce efficient rapid perceptual learning. Utilizing behavioral psychophysics, brain stimulation and neuroimaging, we aim to reveal the neurobehavioral mechanisms by which brief exposure to learned information modulates brain plasticity and supports rapid learning processes. In parallel, we investigate how these learning mechanisms operate across domains, for example by testing the hypothesis that similar inherent mechanisms may also result in maladaptive consequences, when brief reactivations occur spontaneously as intrusive enhanced memories following negative events. Unraveling the mechanisms of this new form of rapid learning could set the foundations to enhance learning in daily life when beneficial, and to downregulate maladaptive consequences of negative memories.

Is behaviour a developmental trait?

Lecture
Date:
Wednesday, January 11, 2023
Hour: 10:00 - 11:00
Location:
Arthur and Rochelle Belfer Building for Biomedical Research
Prof. Gil Levkowitz
|
Departments of Molecular Cell Biology and Molecular Neuroscience

Capturing Neuronal Activity with more Precision and Fidelity in Time and Space

Lecture
Date:
Tuesday, January 10, 2023
Hour: 12:30 - 13:30
Location:
Gerhard M.J. Schmidt Lecture Hall
Dr. Peter Bandettini
|
Laboratory of Brain and Cognition NIMH Bethesda MD

My lab’s focus in recent years has been split between development of ultra-high resolution fMRI at high field and the exploration of more sensitive yet robust methods to find all the salient transients and trends in the signal. High field, high resolution fMRI relies heavily on the acquisition technology and the functional contrast used as well as unique processing approaches that segment, as well as possible, cortical layers for analysis. Our fMRI time series analysis research relies on creative paradigm design in conjunction with tailored processing methods that strike a balance between casting a wide net for potentially informative signals and applying just enough modeling to make sense of the data. Our goal is to use fMRI to see neuronal activity and capture neural correlates of behavior that have previously been elusive to more standard approaches.  Specifically, for our high resolution fMRI work, I will describe experiments demonstrating layer-specific activity in motor, somatosensory, and visual cortex that changes with tasks that modulate the hypothesized input and output cortical communication. In our lab, we perform layer fMRI using a functional contrast called VASO (vascular space occupancy) that is sensitive to blood volume changes in micro vessels - having more specificity than BOLD with only a small tradeoff in sensitivity. Layer fMRI has the potential to provide cortical hierarchy information and communication directionality based on the understanding that feedforward connections terminate predominantly in middle layers and feedback connections terminate in predominantly upper and lower layers. Hence by determining activation location across cortical depth, one can infer whether the activation is feedforward or feedback. I will also demonstrate how the use of resting state connectivity in conjunction with layer fMRI is able to discern such cortical hierarchy in visual areas. Lastly, I will also show examples of applications of layer fMRI in frontal cortex during a working memory task. In addition, I will show our high resolution fMRI work that has allowed us to discern a new digit organizational pattern in motor cortex.  For our time series work, I will show our recent results in using connectivity-based decoding for identifying, in an unsupervised manner, tasks being performed. In addition, I will show an application of naturalistic stimuli and inter subject correlation to characterize personality trait and language skills of individuals. Lastly, changes arousal state during scanning has been viewed as both a confound and opportunity. I demonstrate our effort to further characterize the temporal and spatial signatures of arousal state changes in fMRI time series.

Pages

All events, All years

How the brain transforms sensory input into action

Lecture
Date:
Tuesday, February 21, 2023
Hour: 12:30 - 13:30
Location:
Prof. Tom Mrsic-Flogel
|
Sainsbury Wellcome Centre, University College London, UK

Cerebral Cortex Connectomics

Lecture
Date:
Tuesday, February 14, 2023
Hour: 12:30 - 13:30
Location:
Gerhard M.J. Schmidt Lecture Hall
Prof. Moritz Helmstaedter
|
Dept of Connectomics Max Planck Institute for Brain Research Frankfurt

Dept of Connectomics Max Planck Institute for Brain Research Frankfurt

Mapping brainstem nuclei structure and connectivity in health and disease 

Lecture
Date:
Tuesday, February 7, 2023
Hour: 12:30 - 13:30
Location:
Gerhard M.J. Schmidt Lecture Hall
Dr. Marta Bianciardi
|
Radiology, Harvard Medical School Martinos Center for Biomedical Imaging, MGH

Brainstem nuclei in humans play a crucial role in vital functions, such as arousal, autonomic homeostasis, sensory and motor relay, nociception, and sleep and have been implicated in a vast array of brain pathologies, including disorders of consciousness, sleep disorders, autonomic disorders, pain, Parkinson’s disease and other motor disorders. Yet, an in vivo delineation of most human brainstem nuclei location and connectivity using conventional imaging has been elusive because of limited sensitivity and contrast for detecting these small regions using standard neuroimaging methods. In this talk, Dr. Bianciardi will present the probabilistic atlas and connectome of 31 brainstem nuclei of the arousal, motor, autonomic and sensory systems developed by her team in healthy living humans using structural, functional and diffusion-based MRI at 7 Tesla. She will also show the translatability of 7 Tesla connectivity results to conventional 3 Tesla imaging. Dr Bianciardi will conclude her seminar by presenting the first translational application of the brainstem nuclei atlas to investigate arousal and motor mechanisms in traumatic coma and premanifest synucleinopathy.

Active vision and vision for action

Lecture
Date:
Thursday, February 2, 2023
Hour: 12:30 - 13:30
Location:
Gerhard M.J. Schmidt Lecture Hall
Prof. Daniel Kerschensteiner
|
Washington University School of Medicine St. Louis

 Vision is an active sense in which an animal's gaze and pupil shape the content of the retinal image. In the first part of my talk, I will discuss how the viewing strategies of mice align with the neural architecture of their visual system to accomplish an essential visual task: predation. In the second part of my talk, I will compare the hunting behavior of mice to that of a specialized predator, similar in size but distant in evolution, and present our initial insights into the organization of visual information in this animal. Finally, I will present ongoing work indicating that the pupillary reflex arc implements a more complex stimulus-response function than previously thought. I will discuss the underlying neural mechanisms and potential purpose and show conservation from mice to humans. 

The development and molecular mechanisms of crystal-forming cells

Lecture
Date:
Wednesday, February 1, 2023
Hour: 10:00 - 11:00
Location:
Arthur and Rochelle Belfer Building for Biomedical Research
Dr. Dvir Gur
|
Departments of Molecular Genetics

My adventures in the rat interactive foraging facility (RIFF)

Lecture
Date:
Tuesday, January 31, 2023
Hour: 12:30 - 13:30
Location:
Gerhard M.J. Schmidt Lecture Hall
Prof. Eli Nelken
|
ELSC-The Hebrew University of Jerusalem

We developed an arena (called colloquially the RIFF) for jointly studying behavior and neural activity in freely-behaving rats. The RIFF operates as a state machine, allowing us to implement a large number of different behaviors as Markov Decision Processes and therefore to analyze much of the data within the theoretical framework of reinforcement learning. In the studies I will show here, we recorded neural activity from auditory cortex while rats performed auditory-guided behavior. We observed an intricate interplay between behavior and neural activity that was much richer than we expected.

Naturalistic approaches for studying social interactions, communication and language at cellular scale

Lecture
Date:
Tuesday, January 24, 2023
Hour: 12:30 - 13:30
Location:
Gerhard M.J. Schmidt Lecture Hall
Prof. Ziv Williams
|
Center for Nervous System Repair Harvard Medical School, Boston MA

Social interactions are remarkably dynamic, requiring individuals to understand not only how their behavior may affect others but also how others may respond in return. In humans, social interactions are also often dominated by processes such as language and theory of mind which allow us to communicate complex thoughts and beliefs. Understanding the basic cellular processes that underlie social behavior or by which individuals communicate, however, has remained a challenge. Here, I describe naturalistic approaches developed in animals and humans that aim of investigating these questions. First, by developing an ethologically based group task in three-interacting rhesus macaques, I describe representations of other’s behavior by neurons in the prefrontal cortex, reflecting the other’s identities, their interactions, actions, and outcomes. I also show how these cells collectively represent the interaction between specific group members and how they enable mutually beneficial social behavior. Second, by recording from neurons in the human prefrontal cortex during language-based tasks, I describe neurons that reliably encode information about others’ beliefs across richly varying scenarios and that distinguish self- from other-belief-related representations. By further following their encoding dynamics, I also describe how these cells represent the contents of the others’ beliefs and predict whether they are true or false. Finally, I describe how these cell ensembles track linguistic information during natural speech processing and how language can be used to ask specific questions about the single-cellular constructs that underlie social reasoning. Together, these studies reveal cellular mechanisms for interactive social behavior in animals and humans and highlight the prospective use of naturalistic approaches in social neuroscience.

Rapid learning (and unlearning) in the human brain

Lecture
Date:
Thursday, January 19, 2023
Hour: 14:00 - 15:00
Location:
Gerhard M.J. Schmidt Lecture Hall
Prof. Nitzan Censor
|
School of Psychological Sciences & Sagol School of Neuroscience Tel Aviv University

A plethora of studies have pointed to sensory plasticity in the adult visual system, documenting long-term improvements in perception. Such perceptual learning is enabled by repeated practice, inducing use-dependent plasticity in early visual areas and their readouts. I will discuss results from our lab challenging the fundamental assumption in low-level perceptual learning that only 'practice makes perfect', indicating that brief reactivations of visual memories induce efficient rapid perceptual learning. Utilizing behavioral psychophysics, brain stimulation and neuroimaging, we aim to reveal the neurobehavioral mechanisms by which brief exposure to learned information modulates brain plasticity and supports rapid learning processes. In parallel, we investigate how these learning mechanisms operate across domains, for example by testing the hypothesis that similar inherent mechanisms may also result in maladaptive consequences, when brief reactivations occur spontaneously as intrusive enhanced memories following negative events. Unraveling the mechanisms of this new form of rapid learning could set the foundations to enhance learning in daily life when beneficial, and to downregulate maladaptive consequences of negative memories.

Is behaviour a developmental trait?

Lecture
Date:
Wednesday, January 11, 2023
Hour: 10:00 - 11:00
Location:
Arthur and Rochelle Belfer Building for Biomedical Research
Prof. Gil Levkowitz
|
Departments of Molecular Cell Biology and Molecular Neuroscience

Capturing Neuronal Activity with more Precision and Fidelity in Time and Space

Lecture
Date:
Tuesday, January 10, 2023
Hour: 12:30 - 13:30
Location:
Gerhard M.J. Schmidt Lecture Hall
Dr. Peter Bandettini
|
Laboratory of Brain and Cognition NIMH Bethesda MD

My lab’s focus in recent years has been split between development of ultra-high resolution fMRI at high field and the exploration of more sensitive yet robust methods to find all the salient transients and trends in the signal. High field, high resolution fMRI relies heavily on the acquisition technology and the functional contrast used as well as unique processing approaches that segment, as well as possible, cortical layers for analysis. Our fMRI time series analysis research relies on creative paradigm design in conjunction with tailored processing methods that strike a balance between casting a wide net for potentially informative signals and applying just enough modeling to make sense of the data. Our goal is to use fMRI to see neuronal activity and capture neural correlates of behavior that have previously been elusive to more standard approaches.  Specifically, for our high resolution fMRI work, I will describe experiments demonstrating layer-specific activity in motor, somatosensory, and visual cortex that changes with tasks that modulate the hypothesized input and output cortical communication. In our lab, we perform layer fMRI using a functional contrast called VASO (vascular space occupancy) that is sensitive to blood volume changes in micro vessels - having more specificity than BOLD with only a small tradeoff in sensitivity. Layer fMRI has the potential to provide cortical hierarchy information and communication directionality based on the understanding that feedforward connections terminate predominantly in middle layers and feedback connections terminate in predominantly upper and lower layers. Hence by determining activation location across cortical depth, one can infer whether the activation is feedforward or feedback. I will also demonstrate how the use of resting state connectivity in conjunction with layer fMRI is able to discern such cortical hierarchy in visual areas. Lastly, I will also show examples of applications of layer fMRI in frontal cortex during a working memory task. In addition, I will show our high resolution fMRI work that has allowed us to discern a new digit organizational pattern in motor cortex.  For our time series work, I will show our recent results in using connectivity-based decoding for identifying, in an unsupervised manner, tasks being performed. In addition, I will show an application of naturalistic stimuli and inter subject correlation to characterize personality trait and language skills of individuals. Lastly, changes arousal state during scanning has been viewed as both a confound and opportunity. I demonstrate our effort to further characterize the temporal and spatial signatures of arousal state changes in fMRI time series.

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