Events

lecture

Tuesday, December 3, 2024
12:30 - 13:30

Gerhard M.J. Schmidt Lecture Hall

The Evolution of 7T (and Beyond) MRI in Basic Research and Clinical Practice

lecture

Monday, October 14, 2024
15:00 - 17:00

Gerhard M.J. Schmidt Lecture Hall

The role of neurons in the direction-selective retinal circuit in visual processing in the retina and in the visual thalamus

Alina Heukamp-Prof. Michal Rivlin Lab

lecture

Thursday, July 11, 2024
11:00 - 12:00

Gerhard M.J. Schmidt Lecture Hall

Designing Language Models to Think Like Humans

Dr. Chen Shani

While language models (LMs) show impressive text manipulation capabilities, they also lack commonsense and reasoning abilities and are known to be brittle. In this talk, I will suggest a different LMs design paradigm, inspired by how humans understand it. I will present two papers, both shedding light on human-inspired NLP architectures aimed at delving deeper into the meaning beyond words. The first paper [1] accounts for the lack of commonsense and reasoning abilities by proposing a paradigm shift in language understanding, drawing inspiration from embodied cognitive linguistics (ECL). In this position paper we propose a new architecture that treats language as inherently executable, grounded in embodied interaction, and driven by metaphoric reasoning. The second paper [2] shows that LMs are brittle and far from human performance in their concept-understanding and abstraction capabilities. We argue this is due to their token-based objectives, and implement a concept-aware post-processing manipulation, showing it matches human intuition better. We then pave the way for more concept-aware training paradigms. [1] Language (Re)modelling: Towards Embodied Language Understanding Ronen Tamari, Chen Shani, Tom Hope, Miriam R L Petruck, Omri Abend, and Dafna Shahaf. 2020. In Proceedings of the 58th Annual Meeting of the Association for Computational Linguistics (ACL), pages 6268–6281, Online. Association for Computational Linguistics. [2] Towards Concept-Aware Large Language Models Shani, Chen, Jilles Vreeken, and Dafna Shahaf. In Findings of the Association for Computational Linguistics: EMNLP 2023, pp. 13158-13170. 2023. Bio: Chen Shani is a post-doctoral researcher at Stanford's NLP group, collaborating with Prof. Dan Jurafsky. Previously, she pursued her Ph.D. at the Hebrew University under the guidance of Prof. Dafna Shahaf and worked at Amazon Research. Her focus lies at the intersection of humans and NLP, where she implements insights from human cognition to improve NLP systems.

lecture

Tuesday, July 9, 2024
12:30 - 13:30

Gerhard M.J. Schmidt Lecture Hall

This decision, not just the average decision: Factors contributing to one single perceptual judgment

Prof. Mathew E. Diamond

lecture

Tuesday, June 25, 2024
12:30

Gerhard M.J. Schmidt Lecture Hall

Reading Minds & Machines-AND-The Wisdom of a Crowd of Brains

Prof. Michal Irani

lecture

Sunday, June 23, 2024
14:15 - 15:30

Nella and Leon Benoziyo Building for Brain Research

Memory and Obliviscence:From Random to Structured Material

Antonis Georgiou-Student Seminar-PhD Thesis Defense

lecture

Thursday, June 13, 2024
14:30

Gerhard M.J. Schmidt Lecture Hall

Elucidating convergence and divergence of neural mechanisms: from genes to behavior

Asaf Gat-Student Seminar-PhD Thesis Defense

lecture

Wednesday, June 5, 2024
10:00 - 11:00

Nella and Leon Benoziyo Building for Brain Research

Memory consolidation and generalization during sleep

Ella Bar-Student Seminar-PhD Thesis Defense

lecture

Tuesday, June 4, 2024
12:30 - 13:30

Gerhard M.J. Schmidt Lecture Hall

Blood flow perturbations and its impact on brain structure and function: from microstrokes to heartbeats

Prof. Pablo Blinder

lecture

Tuesday, May 28, 2024
12:30 - 13:15

Gerhard M.J. Schmidt Lecture Hall

Vasosdynamics of cortical arterioles and what it informs us about neuronal activity

lecture

Tuesday, May 7, 2024
12:30 - 13:30

Gerhard M.J. Schmidt Lecture Hall

The evolution and development of critical periods of cortical plasticity

lecture

Tuesday, April 16, 2024
12:30 - 13:30

Gerhard M.J. Schmidt Lecture Hall

Consciousness and the brain: comparing and testing neuroscientific theories of consciousness

Prof. Liad Mudrik

lecture

Tuesday, April 9, 2024
14:00 - 15:00

Arthur and Rochelle Belfer Building for Biomedical Research

Beyond Touch: Exploring Audible Aspects of Rodent Whisking

Ben Efron PhD Thesis Defense

lecture

Tuesday, April 9, 2024
12:30 - 13:30

Gerhard M.J. Schmidt Lecture Hall

Information processing in spiking networks: Converging assemblies

Prof. Eran Stark

lecture

Tuesday, April 2, 2024
12:30 - 13:30

Gerhard M.J. Schmidt Lecture Hall

Studying Ageing and Neurodegenerative Brain with Quantitative MRI

Prof. Aviv Mezer

lecture

Sunday, March 24, 2024
11:00 - 12:00

Gerhard M.J. Schmidt Lecture Hall

Hippocampal pathology and pathophysiology in the development of temporal lobe epileptogenesis

Prof. Robert S. Sloviter

lecture

Tuesday, March 19, 2024
12:30 - 13:30

Gerhard M.J. Schmidt Lecture Hall

Dimensionality bottleneck uncovers simple action selection rules in hunting zebrafish

Dr. Lilach Avitan

lecture

Wednesday, March 13, 2024
15:30 - 16:30

Arthur and Rochelle Belfer Building for Biomedical Research

A brain-computer interface for studying long-term changes of hippocampal neural codes

Linor Baliti Turgeman-PhD Thesis Defense

lecture

Tuesday, March 12, 2024
12:30 - 13:30

Gerhard M.J. Schmidt Lecture Hall

Travelling waves or sequentially activated modules: mapping the granularity of cortical propagation

Dr. Mark Shein-Idelson

lecture

Tuesday, February 20, 2024
12:30

Gerhard M.J. Schmidt Lecture Hall

Mapping the world around us: A topology-preserved schema of space that supports goal-directed navigation

Dr. Raunak Basu

lecture

Wednesday, February 14, 2024
14:00 - 15:00

The David Lopatie Hall of Graduate Studies

The role of the corpus callosum in interhemispheric communication

Yael Oran-PhD Thesis Defense

lecture

Tuesday, February 13, 2024
12:30 - 13:30

Gerhard M.J. Schmidt Lecture Hall

Mechanistic insights into ‘brainwashing’

Prof. Jonathan Kipnis

lecture

Tuesday, January 30, 2024
12:30 - 13:30

Gerhard M.J. Schmidt Lecture Hall

One molecular- and one circuit-level insight into cognition from studying Drosophila

Prof. Gaby Maimon

lecture

Tuesday, January 16, 2024
12:30 - 13:30

Gerhard M.J. Schmidt Lecture Hall

Non-canonical circuits for olfaction

Dr. Dan Rokni

lecture

Tuesday, January 9, 2024
13:00

Wolfson Building for Biological Research

Immunoception: Brain Representation and Control of Immunity

Prof. Asya Rolls

lecture

Thursday, January 4, 2024
12:30 - 13:30

Gerhard M.J. Schmidt Lecture Hall

Olfactory information processing: timing, sequences, geometry and relevance

Prof. Dmitry Rinberg

lecture

Tuesday, January 2, 2024
00:00

Gerhard M.J. Schmidt Lecture Hall

A paradigm shift in GPCR recruitment and activity: GPCR Voltage Dependence Controls Neuronal Plasticity and Behavior

Prof. Moshe Parnas

: G-protein coupled receptors (GPCRs) play a paramount role in diverse brain functions. Twenty years ago, GPCR activity was shown to be regulated by membrane potential in vitro, but whether the voltage dependence of GPCRs contributes to neuronal coding and behavioral output under physiological conditions in vivo has never been demonstrated. We show in two different processes that muscarinic GPCR mediated neuromodulation in vivo is voltage dependent. First, we show that muscarinic type A receptors (mAChR-A) mediated neuronal potentiation is voltage dependent. This potentiation voltage dependency is abolished in mutant flies expressing a voltage independent receptor. Most important, muscarinic receptor voltage independence caused a strong behavioral effect of increased odor habituation. Second, we show that muscarinic type B receptors (mAChR-B) voltage dependency is required for both efficient and accurate learning and memory. Normally, to prevent non-specific olfactory learning and memory, mAChR-B activity suppress both signals that are required for plasticity. Behavior experiments demonstrate that mAChR-B knockdown impairs olfactory learning by inducing undesired changes to the valence of an odor that was not associated with the reinforcer. On the other hand, mAChR-B voltage dependence prevents mAChR-B to interfere with plasticity in neurons that are required for the learning and memory process. Indeed, generating flies with a voltage independent mAChR-B resulted in impaired learning. Thus, we provide the very first demonstrations of physiological roles for the voltage dependency of GPCRs by demonstrating crucial involvement of GPCR voltage dependence in neuronal plasticity and behavior. As such, our findings create a paradigm shift in our thinking on GPCR recruitment and activity. Together, we suggest that GPCR voltage dependency plays a role in many diverse neuronal functions including learning and memory and may serve as a target for novel drug development. Light refreshments before the seminar.

lecture

Wednesday, December 6, 2023
14:00 - 15:00

Context-Dependent Dynamic Coordination of Head and Eye Movements During Visual Orienting

Ofer Karp-PhD Defense seminar

The orienting response, described by Pavlov as the “what is it?” reflex, aims to describe an individual's reaction to unexpected stimuli in their environment. Many experimental results show that in such an event, the quickest motor response is of a saccadic eye movement, and if the head is free to move, a head-shift follows the eye to meet the event. Studying orienting in different tasks and contexts have uncovered several variations in head-eye coordination, including modulations of the number of saccades during a single orienting motion and modulations of the relative timing between head and eye movements. In this presentation, I will present my attempt at understanding and modeling the brain-environment loops underlying the visual orienting response. For this aim I have designed and constructed a virtual reality (VR) setting that allows head and eye real-time tracking during visual tasks in different contexts. I will show that, with head-free viewing, the classic eye-leading, fast saccadic gaze-shift response is typical for cases of external visual stimuli. In contrast, multi-saccadic, head-leading gaze-shifts are typical for cases in which the subject orients towards an internal reference position, with no external visual que, regardless of the angle. I demonstrate that the kinematics of the first saccadic eye movement is different between the two conditions, suggesting different motor control mechanisms. My results suggest that the context of orienting, whether it is exogenous (targeting an external stimulus) or endogenous (targeting an internal reference point) affects the balance between the two mechanisms. A comparison of the orienting responses towards visual versus auditory stimuli suggests different modalities (such as auditory and proprioceptive) are treated as endogenous by the visual control system. Based on these results, I suggest a competitive multiple-closed-loop dynamic model of gaze orienting. Simulations of the model show it can replicate the empirical kinematics and statistics. My results suggest that the traditional view of the mechanism underlying gaze orienting response should be revisited to take into account the source of the response as well as the subjective context of orienting. I propose that the closed-loop model for orienting presented here can address this aspect. If accepted, this model can facilitate the diagnosis and treatment of several oculomotor impairments. Zoom: https://weizmann.zoom.us/j/98466393859?pwd=blJkSDUyWkR0L2FhQUFueS9FY2lwZz09 Id: 98466393859 passcode: 059130

lecture

Thursday, November 23, 2023
11:30 - 12:30

Dissecting the role of peripheral immunity in Alzheimer’s Disease pathogenesis and disease course

Tommaso Croese PhD Defense

lecture

Thursday, September 28, 2023
11:00 - 12:15

The David Lopatie Hall of Graduate Studies

Experience-dependent genetic and synaptic regulation of stability and plasticity in cortical circuits

Dahlia Kushinsky-Student Seminar PhD Thesis Defense

lecture

Wednesday, August 30, 2023
12:30 - 13:30

Gerhard M.J. Schmidt Lecture Hall

Understanding spontaneous neuronal activity with neurophotonics

Prof. Anna Devor

lecture

Monday, July 17, 2023
10:00 - 11:00

Arthur and Rochelle Belfer Building for Biomedical Research

Germ-cell migration and fate maintenance in zebrafish

Prof. Erez Raz

lecture

Monday, July 10, 2023
12:45 - 13:45

Gerhard M.J. Schmidt Lecture Hall

Dendritic voltage imaging, excitability rules, and plasticity

Prof. Adam E. Cohen

lecture

Wednesday, July 5, 2023
10:00 - 11:00

Arthur and Rochelle Belfer Building for Biomedical Research

Chromatin 3D distribution in live muscle nuclei: impacts on epigenetic activation/repression of chromatin

Prof. Talila Volk

lecture

Wednesday, July 5, 2023
12:30 - 13:30

Arthur and Rochelle Belfer Building for Biomedical Research

Toward “reading” and “writing” neural population codes in the primate cortex

Prof. Eyal Seidemann

lecture

Tuesday, June 20, 2023
11:30 - 12:30

Arthur and Rochelle Belfer Building for Biomedical Research

Mood temporal dynamics characterized with computational and engineering-based approaches

Dr. Hanna Keren

lecture

Tuesday, June 13, 2023
12:30 - 13:30

Gerhard M.J. Schmidt Lecture Hall

Beyond the arcuate fasciculus: A multiplicity of language pathways in the human brain

Prof. Michal Ben-Shachar

lecture

Monday, June 12, 2023
11:00 - 12:15

Arthur and Rochelle Belfer Building for Biomedical Research

Reprogramming the topology of the nociceptive circuit in C. elegans reshapes sexual behavior

Vladyslava Pechuk

lecture

Tuesday, June 6, 2023
12:30 - 13:30

Arthur and Rochelle Belfer Building for Biomedical Research

Local and long-range inputs contributing to sequence generation in the zebra finch

Prof. Michael A. Long

lecture

Thursday, June 1, 2023
12:30 - 13:30

Arthur and Rochelle Belfer Building for Biomedical Research

Volatile cortical working memory representations crystalize with practice

Prof. Peyman Golshani

lecture

Tuesday, May 30, 2023
12:30 - 13:30

Gerhard M.J. Schmidt Lecture Hall

Cognitive neuroscience of learning and memory in human infants

Prof. Nick Turk-Browne

lecture

Tuesday, May 23, 2023
12:30 - 13:30

Gerhard M.J. Schmidt Lecture Hall

The neurocircuit underlying social approach and avoidance behavior

Prof. Camilla Bellone

lecture

Sunday, May 21, 2023
12:30

Gerhard M.J. Schmidt Lecture Hall

Illuminating neural computations with structured light and sound wavefronts

Prof. Shy Shoham

lecture

Monday, May 15, 2023
11:00 - 12:15

Arthur and Rochelle Belfer Building for Biomedical Research

Features and Objects as Perceptual Attractors: Theory, Paradigm, and Results from The Rat’s Whisker System

Guy Nelinger, Student Seminar - PhD Thesis Defense

lecture

Wednesday, May 10, 2023
13:00 - 14:00

Arthur and Rochelle Belfer Building for Biomedical Research

Smell and our unconscious sense of self

Prof. Benjamin D. Young

lecture

Wednesday, May 10, 2023
10:00 - 11:15

Arthur and Rochelle Belfer Building for Biomedical Research

An Innate Immunity Pathway Against Invading Microbes Targets the Paternal Mitochondria for Destruction after Fertilization

Prof. Eli Arama

lecture

Tuesday, May 2, 2023
12:30 - 13:30

Gerhard M.J. Schmidt Lecture Hall

Nature, nurture, and the neuroscience of parenthood

Prof. Bianca Jones Marlin

lecture

Tuesday, May 2, 2023
12:30 - 13:30

Gerhard M.J. Schmidt Lecture Hall

Nature, nurture, and the neuroscience of parenthood

Prof. Bianca Jones Marlin

lecture

Monday, April 17, 2023
12:45 - 13:30

Gerhard M.J. Schmidt Lecture Hall

Correlated light and electron microscopy reveal recurrent circuit motives in the zebrafish hindbrain visual integrator network

Prof. Armin Bahl

lecture

Monday, April 3, 2023
12:45 - 13:30

Gerhard M.J. Schmidt Lecture Hall

Navigation in larval zebrafish:strategies and internal representations

Prof. Ruben Portugues

lecture

Monday, March 20, 2023
14:45 - 15:45

Max and Lillian Candiotty Building

The neurobiological function of experience-regulated genomic enhancers From transcriptional mechanisms to control over synaptic plasticity and sensory processing

Ori Roethler Dr. Ivo Spiegel Lab

lecture

Thursday, March 16, 2023
10:30 - 13:30

Nella and Leon Benoziyo Building for Brain Research

Neuronal activity and noise in synaptic wiring specificity

Dr. Laura Andreae

lecture

Wednesday, March 1, 2023
10:00 - 11:00

Arthur and Rochelle Belfer Building for Biomedical Research

Deciphering integration of contradictory signals in epithelial-to-mesenchymal transition

Dr. Yaron Antebi

lecture

Tuesday, February 28, 2023
12:30 - 13:30

Gerhard M.J. Schmidt Lecture Hall

Horizontal cells of the vertebrate retina – From channels to functions

Prof. Andreas Feigenspan

lecture

Monday, February 27, 2023
14:30

Gerhard M.J. Schmidt Lecture Hall

Sensory processing in the whisker system of awake, behaving mice

Prof. Rasmus Petersen

lecture

Tuesday, February 21, 2023
12:30 - 13:30

How the brain transforms sensory input into action

Prof. Tom Mrsic-Flogel

lecture

Tuesday, February 14, 2023
12:30 - 13:30

Gerhard M.J. Schmidt Lecture Hall

Cerebral Cortex Connectomics

Prof. Moritz Helmstaedter

lecture

Tuesday, February 7, 2023
12:30 - 13:30

Gerhard M.J. Schmidt Lecture Hall

Mapping brainstem nuclei structure and connectivity in health and disease

Dr. Marta Bianciardi

lecture

Thursday, February 2, 2023
12:30 - 13:30

Gerhard M.J. Schmidt Lecture Hall

Active vision and vision for action

Prof. Daniel Kerschensteiner

lecture

Wednesday, February 1, 2023
10:00 - 11:00

Arthur and Rochelle Belfer Building for Biomedical Research

The development and molecular mechanisms of crystal-forming cells

Dr. Dvir Gur

lecture

Tuesday, January 31, 2023
12:30 - 13:30

Gerhard M.J. Schmidt Lecture Hall

My adventures in the rat interactive foraging facility (RIFF)

Prof. Eli Nelken

lecture

Tuesday, January 24, 2023
12:30 - 13:30

Gerhard M.J. Schmidt Lecture Hall

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

Prof. Ziv Williams

lecture

Thursday, January 19, 2023
14:00 - 15:00

Gerhard M.J. Schmidt Lecture Hall

Rapid learning (and unlearning) in the human brain

Prof. Nitzan Censor

lecture

Wednesday, January 11, 2023
10:00 - 11:00

Arthur and Rochelle Belfer Building for Biomedical Research

Is behaviour a developmental trait?

Prof. Gil Levkowitz

lecture

Tuesday, January 10, 2023
12:30 - 13:30

Gerhard M.J. Schmidt Lecture Hall

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

Dr. Peter Bandettini

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.

lecture

Tuesday, January 3, 2023
12:30 - 13:30

Gerhard M.J. Schmidt Lecture Hall

Latent cause inference in learning and decision making

Prof. Yael Niv

lecture

Monday, January 2, 2023
11:15 - 12:15

Arthur and Rochelle Belfer Building for Biomedical Research

Renewal and plasticity in oral and gastrointestinal epithelia

Prof. Ophir Klein

lecture

Tuesday, December 13, 2022
12:30

Gerhard M.J. Schmidt Lecture Hall

How movement regulates defensive behaviours in a social context

Prof. Marta Moita

Our work concerns the general problem of adaptive behavior in response to predatory threats, and of the neural mechanisms underlying a choice between strategies. Interacting predators and prey tightly regulate their motion, timing with precision when to hold, attack or escape. Motion cues are thus paramount in these interactions. Speed and (un)predictability have shaped the evolution of sensory and motor systems, the elucidation of which a great deal of research has been devoted. Much less attention has been paid to the role of motion as a social cue of threat or safety. We and others have found that prey animals use the movement of their neighbors to regulate their defensive responses. We have studied social regulation of freezing in rodents and found that rats use cessation of movement evoked sound, resulting from freezing, as a cue of danger. In addition, auto-conditioning, whereby rats learn the association between shock and their own freezing, during prior experience with shock, facilitates the use of freezing by others as an alarm cue. To further explore the social regulation of defensive responses we resorted to the use fruit flies as it easily allows testing of groups of varying sizes, the collection of large data sets and genetic access to individual neuronal types. We established that fruit flies in response to visual looming stimuli, simulating a large object on collision course, make rapid freeze/flee choices accompanied by lasting changes in the fly’s internal state, reflected in altered cardiac activity. Freezing in flies is also strongly modulated by the movement of surrounding neighbours. In contrast with rodents that use auditory cues, female flies use visual motion processed by visual projection neurons. Finally, I will discuss more preliminary findings suggesting that there are multiple states of freezing as measured by muscle activity in the fly legs. Having established the fly as a model to study freezing/fleeing decisions, we are in a great position to perform large scale integrative studies on the organization of defensive behaviours. Short Bio Marta Moita received her BSc degree in Biology at the University of Lisbon, in 1995. As part of Gulbenkian’s PhD programme in Biology and Medicine she developed her thesis work, on the encoding by place cells of threat conditioning under the supervision of Prof. Joseph Ledoux, at the New York University (1997-2002). In 2002, Marta Moita worked as a postdoctoral fellow in Dr. Tony Zador’s laboratory, at the Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, to study the role of auditory cortex in sound discrimination. In 2004, she became a principal investigator, leading the Behavioral Neuroscience lab, at the Instituto Gulbenkian de Ciência. In 2008 her group joined the starting Champalimaud Neuroscience program. In 2018 and 2019 Marta Moita served as Deputy Director of Champalimaud Research. Her lab is primarily interested in understanding the mechanisms of behavior. To this end, the lab has focused on behaviors that are crucial for survival and present in a wide range of species, namely defensive behaviors triggered by external threats. Using a combination of state-of-the-art tools in Neuroscience (initially using rats and currently using fruit flies) and detailed quantitative descriptions of behavior, her lab aims to understand how contextual cues guide the selection between different defensive strategies and how the chosen defensive behavior and accompanying physiological responses are instantiated.

lecture

Wednesday, November 30, 2022
14:00 - 15:00

Deciphering non-neuronal cells contribution to Alzheimer’s disease pathology using high throughput transcriptomic and proteomic methods

Dept of Brain Sciences,Dr. Michal Schwartz,Sedi Medina (PhD Thesis Defense Seminar) on Zoom

Alzheimer's disease (AD) is a devastating pathology of the central nervous system (CNS) of unknown etiology which represents the most common neurodegenerative disorder. For decades, AD was perceived as a disease of the neuron alone. However, research advances in recent years have challenged this concept and shed light on the critical roles of non-neuronal cells on the development and progression of AD. In my PhD, I focused on understanding how two non-neuronal cell types - the Astrocytes and Microglia - respond to AD and how they possibly affect pathological processes. Our research identified a unique population of Astrocytes that significantly increased in association with brain pathology, which we termed disease-associated astrocytes (DAAs). This novel population of DAAs appeared at an early disease stage, increased in abundance with disease progression, and was not observed in young or in healthy adult animals. In addition, similar astrocytes appeared in aged wild-type (WT) mice and in aging human brains, suggesting their linkage to genetic and age-related factors. Aging is considered the greatest risk factor for AD, although the mechanism underlying the aging-related susceptibility to AD is unknown. One emerging factor that is involved in biological aging is the accumulation of senescent cells. Cellular senescence is a process in which aging cells change their characteristic phenotype. Under physiological conditions senescent cells can be removed by the immune system, however with aging, senescent cells accumulate in tissues, either due to a failure of effective removal or due to the accelerated formation of senescent cells. Our data highlight the contribution of non neuronal cells to AD pathogenesis by demonstrating that 1. Overexpression of a specific gene by astrocytes affected the microglia cells' state, leading to a more homeostatic and less reactive microglial phenotype in comparison to the control group. 2. Accumulation of senescent microglia cells was observed in the brain of aged WT mice and AD mouse model (5xFAD), and by applying different therapeutic strategies we managed to observe significant quantitative differences in these cells, followed by a cognitive amelioration.

lecture

Tuesday, November 29, 2022
12:30

Gerhard M.J. Schmidt Lecture Hall

Organization of long-term behavior and individuality across developmental timescales

Prof. Shay Stern

lecture

Tuesday, November 22, 2022
12:30 - 13:30

Gerhard M.J. Schmidt Lecture Hall

Molecular maps for odor processing in the mouse olfactory system

Prof. Alexander Fleischmann

lecture

Wednesday, November 9, 2022
10:00 - 11:00

Arthur and Rochelle Belfer Building for Biomedical Research

Skeletal muscle differentiation and fusion across scales

Prof. Ori Avinoam

lecture

Wednesday, October 26, 2022
11:15 - 12:15

Arthur and Rochelle Belfer Building for Biomedical Research

Selective vascular injury induces degeneration of the olfactory bulb and development of alternatives for functional olfaction

Dr. Tamar Licht

lecture

Monday, October 24, 2022
11:00 - 12:00

Nella and Leon Benoziyo Building for Biological Sciences

Mapping internal representations with adaptive sampling, massive online experiments and cross-cultural research

Dr. Nori Jacoby

lecture

Wednesday, October 19, 2022
10:00 - 11:00

Arthur and Rochelle Belfer Building for Biomedical Research

Limb development: old equation new solution

Prof. Eli Zelzer

lecture

Sunday, September 4, 2022
09:00 - 10:00

Arthur and Rochelle Belfer Building for Biomedical Research

Valence Based Learning in Primate Amygdala Single-Neurons

Tamar Reitich-Stolero (Advisor: Prof. Rony Paz Lab)

lecture

Tuesday, August 30, 2022
12:30 - 13:30

Gerhard M.J. Schmidt Lecture Hall

How brains add vectors

Prof. Gaby Maimon

lecture

Monday, August 1, 2022
13:00 - 14:00

Nella and Leon Benoziyo Building for Brain Research

Emergent collective coding properties in hippocampal neuronal population activity

Liron Sheintuch

lecture

Tuesday, July 5, 2022
12:30 - 13:30

Gerhard M.J. Schmidt Lecture Hall

Using functional MRI to better understand neurodevelopmental disorders and to find biomarkers of treatment response in mental illness

Prof. Keith Shafritz

lecture

Tuesday, June 28, 2022
15:00 - 16:00

Genetic Factors & Long Range Circuit Dynamics Underlying Memory Processing-ZOOM

Prof. Priya Rajasethupathy

lecture

Tuesday, June 21, 2022
12:30 - 13:30

Gerhard M.J. Schmidt Lecture Hall

Sugar: A gut choice

lecture

Monday, June 20, 2022
11:30 - 12:30

Deciphering non-neuronal cells fate in Alzheimer’s disease by next generation transcriptomics

Mor Kenigsbuch

For decades, Alzheimer's disease (AD) was perceived as a disease of the neuron alone. However, research advances in recent years have challenged this concept and shed light on the critical roles of other cells within the central nervous system (CNS) and the periphery. Within the CNS, microglia and astrocytes were revealed to be key players in disease progression, while other cell types, such as oligodendrocytes, pericytes, and endothelial cells, remained relatively understudied. In my PhD, I focused on understanding how two non-neuronal cell types, the oligodendroglia in the brain parenchyma and the choroid plexus (CP) epithelium, respond to AD and how they possibly affect pathological processes. My research identified a cellular state of oligodendrocytes that significantly increased in association with brain pathology, which we termed disease-associated oligodendrocytes (DOLs). Oligodendrocytes with DOL signature could also be identified in a mouse model of tauopathy and other neurodegenerative and autoimmune inflammatory conditions, suggesting a common response of oligodendrocytes to severe deviation from homeostasis. In the second part of my PhD, I contributed to a research aiming to investigate the mechanisms underlying the decline of the CP's neuroprotective abilities in the context of AD. We found that exposure of choroid plexus epithelial cultures to 24-hydroxycholesterol (24-OH), the enzymatic product of the brain-specific enzyme cholesterol 24-hydroxylase (CYP46A1), results in downregulation of aging- related transcriptomic signatures-such as Interferon type I (IFN-I) associated inflammation. Moreover, we found that CYP46A1 is constitutively expressed by the CP of humans and mice but is reduced in AD patients and 5xFAD mice. Overexpression of Cyp46a1 at the CP in 5xFAD mice attenuated cognitive loss and brain inflammation. Our results suggest that CP CYP46A1 is an unexpected safeguard against chronic anti-viral-like responses that can be rescued when lost. Overall, my PhD work highlights the significance of studying the fate of non-neuronal cell types in neurodegenerative diseases, in general, and in AD, in particular, and emphasizes the potential of next- generation transcriptomic techniques as a powerful tool to unveil previously unexpected pathways and mechanisms involved in these diseases. Zoom link-https://weizmann.zoom.us/j/98815291638?pwd=cnZTanhzWkEyYmh4Mjk4OWxHMGE5UT09 Meeting ID:988 1529 1638 Password:880170

lecture

Thursday, June 9, 2022
12:30 - 13:30

Gerhard M.J. Schmidt Lecture Hall

Molecular mechanisms underlying neural circuit assembly in the mammalian visual system

Prof. Alex L. Kolodkin

lecture

Thursday, June 9, 2022
15:00 - 16:30

Gerhard M.J. Schmidt Lecture Hall

Nonoscillatory coding and multiscale representation of ultra-large environments in the bat hippocampus

Dr. Tamir Eliav

lecture

Tuesday, June 7, 2022
15:30 - 16:30

Thalamic regulation of prefrontal dynamics for cognitive control

Prof. Michael Halassa

lecture

Monday, June 6, 2022
13:30 - 15:30

Gerhard M.J. Schmidt Lecture Hall

Architecture and function of small neuronal networks

Adam Haber

lecture

Tuesday, May 17, 2022
14:00 - 15:00

Fast multimodal imaging of brain dynamics underlying sleep and wakefulness

Dr. Laura Lewis

conference

Monday, May 16, 2022
08:00 - 18:00

The David Lopatie Conference Centre

Brain plasticity: Regulation and Modulation

lecture

Tuesday, May 3, 2022
12:30 - 13:30

Gerhard M.J. Schmidt Lecture Hall

Models of Human Memory

Prof. Misha Tsodyks

lecture

Wednesday, April 27, 2022
12:30 - 13:30

Gerhard M.J. Schmidt Lecture Hall

Representation of 3D space in the mammalian brain:From 3D grid cells in flying bats to 3D perception in flying humans

Dr. Gily Ginosar

lecture

Tuesday, April 26, 2022
12:30

Gerhard M.J. Schmidt Lecture Hall

Dopamine release is inversely related to economic demand

Prof. Neir Eshel

lecture

Wednesday, April 13, 2022
12:30

Gerhard M.J. Schmidt Lecture Hall

Fragmenting the self: brainwide recording and the neurobiology of dissociation

Dr. Isaac Kauvar

lecture

Wednesday, April 13, 2022
15:00 - 16:00

Gerhard M.J. Schmidt Lecture Hall

An attempt to account for multiple perceptual memory behaviors in a single framework

Prof. Mathew Diamond

lecture

Tuesday, April 12, 2022
12:30 - 13:30

Gerhard M.J. Schmidt Lecture Hall

Daily normalization of E/I-ratio by light-driven transcription maintains visual processing by Dahlia Kushinsky, PhD Student, Advisor: Dr. Ivo Spiegel and Isolated correlates of perception in the posterior cortex by Michael Sokoletsky, PhD Student, Advisor: Prof. Ilan Lampl

Dahlia Kushinsky, PhD Student, Advisor: Dr. Ivo Spiegel and Michael Sokoletsky, PhD Student, Advisor: Prof. Ilan Lampl

Dahlia Kushinsky- Daily normalization of E/I-ratio by light-driven transcription maintains visual processing Abstract: Consistent and reliable encoding of sensory information is essential for an animal’s survival. However, sensory input in an animal’s environment is constantly changing, likely resulting in changes in the brain at the level of molecules, synapses, and cellular circuitry. It is therefore unclear which elements of the system are stable or dynamic, and what mechanisms allow for overall stability of the brain throughout an animal’s life. To address this question, we focused on the visual cortex of adult mice and took advantage of the daily sensory transitions from the dark of night to daylight and back to darkness during a single day. By using RNA-seq, patch clamp slice electrophysiology, and in vivo longitudinal calcium imaging in awake mice, we monitor the light driven changes in molecules, synapses, and cells across a single day. At each of these levels (molecular, synaptic, and cellular), we find rapid sensory-driven increases shortly after transition from darkness to light which is then normalized later in the day. Based on these findings, we suggest that sensory-driven genetic changes maintain functional stability of neural circuits by regulating E/I ratio in excitatory neurons every day. Michael Sokoletsy- Isolated correlates of perception in the posterior cortex Abstract: To uncover the neural mechanisms of stimulus perception, experimenters commonly use tasks in which subjects are repeatedly presented with a weak stimulus and instructed to report, via movement, if they perceived the stimulus. The difference in neural activity between reported stimulus (hit) and unreported stimulus (miss) trials is then seen as potentially perception-related. However, recent studies found that activity related to the report spreads throughout the brain, calling into question to what extent such tasks may be conflating activity that is perception-related with activity that is report-related. To isolate perception-related activity, we developed a paradigm in which the same mice were trained to report either the presence or absence of a whisker stimulus. We found that isolated perception-related activity appeared within a posterio-parietal network of cortical regions contralateral to the stimulus, was on average an order of magnitude lower than the hit versus miss difference, and began just after the low-level stimulus response. In addition, we performed controls to check that it is specifically associated with performance and is not the result of differences in time or uninstructed movements across the tasks. In summary, we revealed for the first time in mice the cortical areas that are associated specifically with the perception of a sensory stimulus and independently of the report.

lecture

Tuesday, April 5, 2022
12:30 - 13:30

Gerhard M.J. Schmidt Lecture Hall

Conscious intentions during voluntary action formation

Dr. Uri Maoz

lecture

Thursday, March 24, 2022
16:00

The impact of metabolic processes at the brain’s choroid plexus and of the gut microbiome on Alzheimer’s disease manifestation

Afroditi Tsitsou-Kampeli

The immune system and the gut microbiome are becoming major players in chronic neurodegenerative conditions. One of the key interfaces between the brain and the immune system with an impact on brain function is the choroid plexus (CP). The CP interface is central to the maintenance of brain homeostasis by exerting a plethora of different biological processes. However, in aging and Alzheimer’s disease (AD), interferon type-I (IFN-I) signaling accumulates at the CP and impedes part of its beneficial function by inducing a CP-pro-aging signature. My research contributed to the finding that IFN-I signaling at the CP induces an aging-like signature in microglia and impedes cognitive abilities in middle-aged mice in a microglia-dependent manner. In addition, I demonstrated that the brain-specific enzyme, cholesterol 24-hydroxylase (CYP46A1), is expressed by the CP epithelium and that its product, 24-hydroxycholesterol (24-OH), downregulates CP-pro-inflammatory signatures. Furthermore, in AD, CP CYP46A1 protein levels were decreased in both mice and humans and overexpression of Cyp46a1 at the CP in 5xFAD mice reversed brain inflammation, microglial dysfunction signatures, and cognitive loss. Finally, while the pro-inflammatory cytokine TNF-α impaired CP Cyp46a1 expression in vitro, boosting systemic immunity in vivo increased its levels in an IFNGR2-dependent manner. These results highlight CYP46A1 at the CP as a remote regulator of brain inflammation, which diminishes with neurodegeneration, but is amenable to rescue. Focusing on the gut microbiome, I found that 5xFAD mice devoid of microbiome exhibited a striking decrease of long-term spatial memory deficit and increased synaptic and neuronal survival. Spatial memory deficit in 5xFAD mice kept in germ free (GF) or specific-pathogen free (SPF) conditions, negatively correlated with the abundance of 2-hydroxypyridine, while systemic, chronic supply of 2-hydroxypyridine in SPF 5xFAD mice improved spatial memory deficits in comparison to phosphate-buffered saline (PBS)-supplied 5xFAD mice. Overall, these findings demonstrate a microbiome-dependent effect on AD pathology in the 5xFAD mouse model and suggest a connection between 2-hydroxypyridine and AD manifestation. In general, this research thesis addresses novel aspects of choroid plexus and gut microbiome metabolism and their relation to AD progression. Zoom link https://weizmann.zoom.us/j/98658552127?pwd=ZkZmWTBkd1AxZ0xPbGlpU3FPUWpzUT09 Meeting ID:986 5855 2127 Password:495213

lecture

Sunday, March 13, 2022
10:00 - 11:00

Gerhard M.J. Schmidt Lecture Hall

Cracking the olfactory code using behavior

Prof. Dmitry Rinberg

lecture

Thursday, March 10, 2022
12:30 - 13:30

Gerhard M.J. Schmidt Lecture Hall

Brain-computer interfaces for basic science

Prof. Byron Yu

lecture

Monday, March 7, 2022
14:00 - 15:00

Nella and Leon Benoziyo Building for Brain Research

Neural representation geometry: a mesoscale approach linking learning to complex behavior

Stefano Recanatesi

lecture

Tuesday, March 1, 2022
12:30

Looking at night vision

Prof. Shabtai Barash

lecture

Thursday, February 10, 2022
09:00 - 10:00

Effects of physical exercise and adult neurogenesis on hippocampal neural codes

Yoav Rechavi - PhD Thesis Defense on Zoom

lecture

Tuesday, February 1, 2022
12:30

Theory of neural perturbome

Prof. Claudia Clopath

lecture

Tuesday, January 25, 2022
12:30

Gerhard M.J. Schmidt Lecture Hall

To be announced

Alex Borst

lecture

Tuesday, January 25, 2022
10:00 - 11:15

Hippocampal spatial representation during dynamic natural navigation

Ayelet Sare l- PhD Thesis Defense

lecture

Wednesday, January 19, 2022
10:00 - 11:00

Student Seminar on Zoom - PhD Thesis Defense by Maya Amitai

Maya Amitai, MD, PhD

Depression and anxiety disorders are among the most common childhood psychiatric disorders. Selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs) are generally considered first-line treatment for both depression and anxiety in this age group. However, 30%–40% of all patients who receive a sufficient dose and duration of treatment fail to respond. Moreover, SSRI use is frequently associated with adverse events (AEs), including activation symptoms, manic switch and increased suicidal behavior (SBs). These are particularly relevant in pediatric populations because of concerns about the suicide threat of SSRIs, resulting in a "black-box" warning. There are currently no biomarkers that can predict treatment response or AEs. Identification of such biomarkers could help to maximize the benefit-risk ratio for the use of SSRIs and speed the matching of treatment to patient. Given the fact that depression / anxiety risk is influenced by both genetic and environmental factors and that both state and trait factors will be important in treatment response prediction, a multidimensional biomarker panel covering several levels of biological information would likely be necessary. The main objective of this research thesis is to identify biomarkers that will aid in the prediction of response and suicidal and other AEs of SSRI treatment in children and adolescents treated for depression and/or anxiety disorders. We examined the involvement of specific biomarkers (miRNA’s, DNA methylation, single nucleotide polymorphism [SNP's] and metabolites) in the response to SSRIs treatment in children and adolescents and in the differences observed between individuals exhibiting response or non-response/AEs to treatment with SSRIs. Two hundred and sixty-six children and adolescents with depression and/or anxiety disorders were recruited and treated with fluoxetine. The overall response rate was 55%. Several targets from several biological domains (DNA methylation profile, miRNA’s and metabolites) were identifies as differentially expressed between responders and non-responders at baseline test. Pathway analysis of the predicted targets was carried out to assess their putative biological functions. Interestingly, when combining targets from the four biological domains, the targets were predicted to regulate specific biological pathways associated with immune system pathways and/or developmental pathways. Dysregulation of complex gene networks in the developing brain is thought to underlie depression with childhood or adolescent onset. Thus, the identified molecules might play critical roles in transcriptional networks related to treatment response and AEs. These transcriptional networks are particularly relevant to the developing human brain and to neurodevelopmental disorders with childhood/adolescent onset, such as depression and anxiety disorders. Zoom link: https://weizmann.zoom.us/j/91093085114?pwd=RVBKbEZXbjlsaVZrUVRuNThtVHB1UT09 Meeting ID: 910 9308 5114 Password : 419366

lecture

Thursday, January 13, 2022
12:00 - 13:00

OT+ PVN neurons regulate aggression and dominance hierarchy in wild-derived female mice

Itsik Sofer- Phd Thesis Defense

Aggression and dominance hierarchy are basic social behaviors that are essential for the survival and reproductive success of most mammalian species. Typically, they are displayed whenever conspecifics have to compete for limited resources, such as food, water, territory, or access to mates. As a result, and due to sexual selection, intra-sexual competition is higher in males compared to females as fertile females are a limited resource to males. Thus, males often express a higher level of aggression and are most likely to form a dominance hierarchy in a group. Therefore, most studies of the biological basis of intra-sexual aggression and dominance hierarchy have been focused on males. However, it has long been observed that females also compete with each other and can form dominant hierarchies. In this study, we aimed to investigate the role of OT+ PVN neurons in the aggression of wild-derived female mice by comparing them to males. Wild-derived mice were chosen for their higher levels of aggression compared to the lab mouse strains, which might have lost these behavioral traits due to artificial selection and socially restricted environment while in captivity. To manipulate OT+ PVN neurons, we established a wild OT:Cre mouse line by backcrossing wild-derived mice with transgenic lab mice and validated that its phenotype resembles the wild-derived mice. Using these novel wild-backcrossed OT:Cre (Wild-BX) mice, we found that OT+ PVN neurons of females are activated due to agonistic interaction. Next, we virally ablated, using Casp3, or activated, using DREADD, OT+ PVN neurons in wild-BX males and females, and performed a standard resident-intruder assay (RI) to examine territorial aggression towards same-sex adults and unfamiliar pups. We found that ablation of OT+ PVN neurons in wild-BX females reduces adult and pup-directed aggression and increases sniffing behavior. In contrast, activation of this neuronal population promotes aggressive behavior toward adults and pups and decrees sniffing behavior. In males, similar manipulations did not affect either of these aggressive or sniffing behaviors, except a weak impact on pup-directed aggression. Moreover, by examining group behavior in a semi-natural environment, we found that ablation of OT+ PVN neurons suppresses dominant hierarchy formation in groups of wild-BX females. In contrast, activation strengthened the hierarchy and increased agonistic behavior in the group. In males, in contrast to the RI, the OT+ PVN ablation delayed the formation of the hierarchy and increased the anxiety in the group, whereas activation weakened the hierarchy and increased pro-social behavior. These findings suggest that OT PVN neurons have a sexually-dimorphic effect in aggression and dominance hierarchy behaviors, and they emphasize the importance of investigating both sexes in ethologically-relevant animal models and social contexts, in the study of socially relevant neuromodulators. Zoom link: https://weizmann.zoom.us/j/96648920836?pwd=OXlvV0NPTHIrVHNLYUpvZ2lNTnJZdz09 Meeting ID: 966 4892 0836 Password: 248477

lecture

Tuesday, January 11, 2022
16:00 - 17:00

Zoom seminar -Diversity of dopamine neurons: multi-agent reinforcement learning

Prof. Naoshige Uchida

lecture

Monday, January 10, 2022
14:00 - 16:00

Circuits for decisions, attention and working memory in the primate visual system

Dr. Leor Katz

lecture

Wednesday, January 5, 2022
10:00 - 11:00

Investigating the mechanisms underlying the stable coexistence of multiple maps for the same environment

Alice Eldar- MSc Thesis Defense

lecture

Tuesday, January 4, 2022
12:30 - 13:30

Zoom Seminar - Using deep neural networks as cognitive models for how brains act in the natural world

Prof. Uri Hasson

lecture

Thursday, December 30, 2021
14:00 - 15:00

Zoom Seminar-Neuroimaging in drug addiction: an eye towards intervention development

Prof. Rita Goldstein

: Drug addiction is a chronically relapsing disorder characterized by compulsive drug use despite catastrophic personal consequences (e.g., loss of family, job) and even when the substance is no longer perceived as pleasurable. In this talk, I will present results of human neuroimaging studies, utilizing a multimodal approach (neuropsychology, functional magnetic resonance imaging, event-related potentials recordings), to explore the neurobiology underlying the core psychological impairments in drug addiction (impulsivity, drive/motivation, insight/awareness) as associated with its clinical symptomatology (intoxication, craving, bingeing, withdrawal). The focus of this talk is on understanding the role of the dopaminergic mesocorticolimbic circuit, and especially the prefrontal cortex, in higher-order executive dysfunction (e.g., disadvantageous decision-making such as trading a car for a couple of cocaine hits) in drug addicted individuals. The theoretical model that guides the presented research is called iRISA (Impaired Response Inhibition and Salience Attribution), postulating that abnormalities in the orbitofrontal cortex and anterior cingulate cortex (and other prefrontal cortical regions underlying higher order executive function), as related to dopaminergic dysfunction, contribute to the core clinical symptoms in drug addiction. Specifically, our multi-modality program of research is guided by the underlying working hypothesis that drug addicted individuals disproportionately attribute reward value to their drug of choice at the expense of other potentially but no-longer-rewarding stimuli, with a concomitant decrease in the ability to inhibit maladaptive drug use. In this talk I will also explore whether treatment (as usual) and 6-month abstinence enhance recovery in these brain-behavior compromises in treatment seeking cocaine addicted individuals. Promising neuroimaging studies, which combine pharmacological (i.e., oral methylphenidate, or RitalinTM) and salient cognitive tasks or functional connectivity during resting-state, will be discussed as examples of using neuroimaging in the empirical guidance for the development of effective neurorehabilitation strategies (including cognitive reappraisal, mindfulness, and transcranial direct current stimulation) in drug addiction. Zoom Lindk-https://weizmann.zoom.us/j/95406893197?pwd=REt5L1g3SmprMUhrK3dpUDJVeHlrZz09 Meeting ID 954 0689 3197 Password 750421

lecture

Tuesday, December 28, 2021
12:30

ZOOM seminar - Dissecting retinal and brain circuits transmitting light intensity signals and regulating mood

Dr. Shai Sabbah

lecture

Sunday, December 26, 2021
12:30 - 13:30

ZOOM seminar: Sleep-related memory consolidation in humans: beyond single, isolated memories

Dr. Eitan Schechtman

lecture

Wednesday, December 22, 2021
12:30 - 13:30

Arthur and Rochelle Belfer Building for Biomedical Research

Quantitative Tools for Neuroscience Questions

Dr. Ari Pakman

lecture

Tuesday, December 21, 2021
12:30 - 13:30

Zoom seminar: The role of noncanonical hippocampal circuits in memory

Prof. Thomas McHugh

lecture

Tuesday, December 14, 2021
12:30

Gerhard M.J. Schmidt Lecture Hall

Neuron-glia interactions in neurodevelopmental disorders: from basic research to a clinical trial

Dr. Boaz Barak

lecture

Tuesday, December 7, 2021
12:30

Memory consolidation during sleep: Mechanisms and representations

Bernhard Staresina

lecture

Sunday, November 28, 2021
14:00 - 15:15

Neurobiology of Social and Sickness Behaviors

Prof. Catherine Dulac

lecture

Tuesday, November 23, 2021
12:30

Gerhard M.J. Schmidt Lecture Hall

“Deep Internal learning” -- Deep Learning and Visual inference without prior examples

Prof. Michal Irani

lecture

Thursday, November 18, 2021
14:00 - 15:00

Gerhard M.J. Schmidt Lecture Hall

Brain borders at the central stage of neuroimmunology

Prof. Jonathan Kipnis

lecture

Tuesday, November 9, 2021
12:30

Gerhard M.J. Schmidt Lecture Hall

Firing Rate Homeostasis in Neural Circuits: From basic principles to malfunctions

Prof. Inna Slutsky

lecture

Tuesday, November 2, 2021
12:30 - 13:30

Brain-wide networks underlying behavior - Insights from functional ultrasound imaging

lecture

Tuesday, October 26, 2021
12:30 - 13:30

Gerhard M.J. Schmidt Lecture Hall

Nonoscillatory coding and multiscale representation of very large environments in the bat hippocampus by Tamir Eliav and There is Chemistry in Social Chemistry by Inbal Ravreby

Dept of Brain Sciences,Dr. Tamir Eliav,Prof. Nachum Ulanovsky,Prof. Noam Sobel

Nonoscillatory coding and multiscale representation of very large environments in the bat hippocampus Abstract: The hippocampus plays a key role in memory and navigation, and forms a cognitive map of the world: hippocampal ‘place cells’ encode the animal’s location by activating whenever the animal passes a particular region in the environment (the neuron’s ‘place field’). Over the last 50 years of hippocampal research, almost all studies have focused on rodents as animal models, using small laboratory experimental setups. In my research, I explored hippocampal representations in a naturalistic settings, in a unique animal model – the bat. My talk will outline two main stories: (i) In rodents, hippocampal activity exhibits ‘theta oscillations’. These oscillations were proposed to support multiple functions, including memory and sequence formation. However, absence of clear theta in bats and humans has questioned these proposals. Surprisingly, we found that in bats hippocampal neurons exhibited nonoscillatory phase-coding. This highlights the importance of phase-coding, but not oscillations per se, for hippocampal function across species – including humans. (ii) Real-world navigation requires spatial representation of very large environments. To investigate this, we wirelessly recorded from hippocampal dorsal CA1 neurons of bats flying in a long tunnel (200 meters). Place cells displayed a multifield multiscale code: Individual neurons exhibited multiple place fields of diverse sizes, ranging from 0.6 to 32 meters, and the fields of the same neuron differed up to 20-fold in size. Theoretical analysis showed that the multiscale code allows representing large environments with much better accuracy than other codes. Thus, by increasing the spatial scale, we uncovered a neural code that is radically different from classical spatial codes. Together, these results highlight the power of the comparative approach, and demonstrate that studying the brain under naturalistic settings and behavior enables discovering new unknown aspects of the neural code. There is Chemistry in Social Chemistry Abstract: Non-human terrestrial mammals constantly sniff themselves and each-other, and based on this decide who is friend or foe. Humans also constantly sniff themselves and each-other, but the functional significance of this behavior is unknown. Given that humans seek friends who are similar to themselves, we hypothesized that humans may be smelling themselves and others to subconsciously estimate body-odor similarity, and that this may then promote friendship. To test this hypothesis, we recruited non-romantic same-sex friend dyads who had initially bonded instantaneously, or so called click-friends, and harvested their body-odor. In a series of experiments, we then found that objective ratings obtained with an electronic nose, and subjective ratings obtained from independent human smellers, converged to suggest that click-friends smell more similar to each other than random dyads. To then estimate whether this similarity was merely a consequence of friendship, or a driving force of friendship, we recruited complete strangers, smelled them with an electronic nose, and engaged them in non-verbal same-sex dyadic interactions. Remarkably, we observed that dyads who smelled more similar had better dyadic interactions. In other words, we could predict social bonding with an electronic nose. This result implies that body-odor similarity is a causal factor in social interaction, or in other words, there is indeed chemistry in social chemistry.

lecture

Tuesday, October 19, 2021
10:00 - 11:00

Social Behavior in a Social Context: Lessons from Studying Genetic and Neuronal Manipulations affecting Social Behavior in a Complex Environment

Noa Eren (PhD Thesis Defense)

As methods for highly specific and precise manipulations of genetics and neuronal activity become the standard in neuroscience, there is growing demand for behavioral paradigms to evolve as well, beyond the simplified and reductive tests which are commonly used. This is especially evident in social behavior, where standard testing paradigms are typically short, involve only a pair of animals, and take place in stimulus-poor environments. Here, we present a series of studies using the Social Box, an experimental setup developed in our lab to automatically track groups of mice living in an enriched environment over days, and extract dozens of behavioral readouts at the individual, dyadic, and group level. We manipulated neuronal populations expressing the socially-relevant neuropeptides oxytocin (OXT) and urocortin3 (UCN3), and utilized genetic mouse models of human disorders affecting sociability – autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and Williams-Beuren Syndrome (WBS) – to demonstrate the importance of the social context in studying mouse behavior. Repeated optogenetic activation of Oxt+ cells recapitulated the known effect of reducing aggressive behavior in the classical resident-intruder paradigm, but in a group of conspecifics it led to an increase in such behaviors on the second day of activation. In parallel, chemogenetic activation of Oxt+ or Ucn3+ cells, separately or together, increased aggressive behavior in the context of a territorial conflict. Finally, behavior of ASD-like mice was mediated by the group composition, such that single-genotype groups showed greater genotype separation in multi-behavioral space than mixed-genotype groups. These findings emphasize the importance of considering contextual and environmental factors when designing and interpreting behavioral studies, which could affect the translatability of findings from mouse to human. Zoom link to join: https://weizmann.zoom.us/j/94822556146?pwd=VnY2eDVGeWdSNmFCVC9zZDVrWUtvUT09 Meeting ID: 948 2255 6146 Password: 884034

lecture

Tuesday, October 12, 2021
12:30

Gerhard M.J. Schmidt Lecture Hall

To be announced

Dr. Tamir Eliav

lecture

Monday, October 11, 2021
13:30 - 14:30

Time and experience dependent evolution of hippocampal memory codes

Nitzan Geva (PhD Defense)

lecture

Thursday, October 7, 2021
14:00 - 15:00

Episodic Memory from First Principles

Michelangelo Naim (PhD Oral Defense)

lecture

Tuesday, October 5, 2021
12:30

To be announced

Matteo Carandini

lecture

Tuesday, October 5, 2021
12:30 - 13:00

Merging of cues and hunches by the mouse cortex

Prof. Matteo Carandini

lecture

Sunday, September 19, 2021
14:00 - 15:30

Deciphering the role of brain- resident and infiltrating myeloid cells in Alzheimer’s disease

Raz Dvir-Szternfeld (PhD Thesis Defense)

Alzheimer’s disease (AD) is an age-related neurodegenerative disorder, which is the most common cause of dementia. Among the key hallmarks of AD are neurofibrillary tangles, abnormal amyloid beta (A) aggregation, neuroinflammation and neuronal loss; altogether manifested in progressive cognitive decline. Numerous attempts were made to arrest or slow disease progression by directly targeting these factors, with a limited successes in having a meaningful effect on cognition. In the recent years, the focus of AD research has been extended towards exploring the local and systemic immune response. Yet, the role of the two main myeloid populations, the central nerve system (CNS) resident immune cells, microglia and blood-borne monocyte-derived macrophages (MDM) remain unclear. In my PhD, together with members of the teams, using behavioral, immunological, biochemical and single-cell resolution molecular techniques, we deciphered the distinct role of microglia and MDM in transgenic mouse models of AD pathology. Using single cell RNA sequencing (scRNA-seq) in 5xFAD amyloidosis mouse model, we have identified a new state of microglia, which we named disease associated microglia (DAM) that were found in close proximity to A plaques. The full activation of these cells was found to be dependent on Triggering receptor expressed on myeloid cells 2 (TREM2), a well-known risk factor in late onset AD. To get an insight to the role of MDM relative to microglia, we used an experimental paradigm of boosting the systemic immunity by modestly blocking the inhibitory immune checkpoint pathway, PD-1/PD-L1, which was previously shown to be beneficial in ameliorating AD in 5xFAD mice, via facilitating homing of MDM to the brain. We found that the same treatment is efficient also in mouse model of tauopathy and that the MDM homing to the brain following the treatment expressed a unique set of scavenger molecules, including macrophage scavenger receptor 1 (MSR1). We found that MDM expressing MSR1 are essential for the disease modification. Using the same immune-modulatory treatment in a mouse model deficient in TREM2 (Trem2-/-5xFAD) and thus in DAM, allowed us to distinguish between the contribution to the disease modification of MDM and DAM. We found, that MDM display a Trem2-independent role in the cognitive improvement. In both Trem2-/-5xFAD and Trem2+/+5xFAD mice the treatment effect on behavior was accompanied by a reduction in the levels of hippocampal water-soluble Aβ1-42, a fraction of A that contains toxic oligomers. In Trem2+/+5xFAD mice, the same treatment seemed to activate additional Trem2-dependent mechanism, that could involve facilitation of removal of Aβ plaques by DAM or by other TREM2-expressing microglia. Collectively, our finding demonstrates the distinct role of activated microglia and MDM in therapeutic mechanism of AD pathology. They also support the approach of empowering the immune system to facilitate MDM mobilization as a common mechanism for treating AD, regardless of primary disease etiology and TREM2 genetic polymorphism.

lecture

Wednesday, August 4, 2021
10:30

Gerhard M.J. Schmidt Lecture Hall

Principles of functional circuit connectivity: Insights from the zebrafish optic tectum

Prof. German Sumbre

lecture

Tuesday, June 22, 2021
12:30

Yes I Can ! Neural indicators of self-views and their motivational value

Prof. Talma Hendler

lecture

Tuesday, June 15, 2021
12:30

Representation of 3D space in the mammalian brain: From 3D grid cells in flying bats to 3D perception in flying humans

Dr. Gily Ginosar

While our world is three-dimensional (3D), spatial perception is most often studied in animals and humans navigating across 2D surfaces. I will present two cases in which the consideration of the 3D nature of the world has led us to surprising results. The first case regards the neural recording of mammalian grid cells. Grid cells that are recorded over 2D surfaces create a hexagonal-shaped repetitive lattice, which inspired many theoretical studies to investigate the pattern’s mechanism and function. Upon recording in bats flying through 3D space, we found that grid cells did not exhibit a hexagonal global lattice, but rather showed a local order – with grid-fields exhibiting fixed local distances. Our results in 3D strongly argue against most of the prevailing models of grid-cell function, and we suggest a unified model that explains the results in both 2D and 3D. The second case regards the perception of 3D space in humans. Different behavioral studies have shown contradicting evidence of human perception of 3D space being either isotropic or vertically compressed. We addressed this question using human experts in 3D motion and navigation – fighter pilots – studied in a flight simulator. We considered two aspects of the perception of 3D space: surrounding space and travelled space. We show that different aspects of the perception of space are shaped differently with experience: whereas the perception of the 3D surrounding space was vertically compressed in both expert and non-expert subjects, fighter pilots exhibited isotropic perception of travelled space, whereas non-expert subjects retained a distorted perception. Together, our research sheds light on the differences and similarities between the coding of 3D versus 2D space, in both animals and humans. Zoom link to join- https://weizmann.zoom.us/j/96608033618?pwd=SEdJUkR2ZzRBZ3laUUdGbWR1VFJTdz09 Meeting ID: 966 0803 3618 Password: 564068 Host: Dr. Rita Schmidt rita.schmidt@weizmann.ac.il tel: 9070

lecture

Tuesday, June 1, 2021
12:30

Synthetic and Natural Plasticity in the Auditory Cortex

Prof. Adi Mizrahi

lecture

Thursday, May 27, 2021
11:00 - 12:30

The interaction of valence and information gain during learning, perception and decision-making

Ido Toren (PhD Thesis Defense)

Decision making is a fundamental ability to human life. Even the simplest decision we make requires integration of multiple factors in our brain, such as prior knowledge, information from the environment, emotions and many more. Despite many years of research and numerous important and ground-breaking findings on how learning and decision-making are generated in our brain, a lot of knowledge is still required for a comprehensive understanding of it. My research initiated from the motivation to understand the unique contribution of valence (rewards and punishments) – when presented as feedback during learning – to perception and decision-making. For that purpose, I studied multiple groups of individuals under different experimental conditions created to elucidate behavioral and neural responses to rewards and punishments. I asked how prediction errors (PE, the difference between expected and received outcomes) bias the perception of time, and how valence and information from feedback, factors that are often indistinguishable, differently guide decision making in a multi-choice environment. Using functional MRI and computational models, I found that positive and negative PEs, known to drive learning, bias the perception of time in opposite directions. Positive PEs induce change in the perceived time so it seems longer compared to a neutral condition (no PE). In contrast, when a negative PE is detected, time is perceived to be shorter. My results identify the Putamen, a structure that receives dopaminergic projections and is involved in time perception, as the brain region that likely drives this bias and underlies the interaction between time perception and prediction-errors. In addition, I demonstrated that knowing the outcome valence in advance can enable an information-based decision making, namely one that is not affected by the valence itself and is driven only by the information available in the environment. Because uncertainty regarding choice increases when more options are available to choose from, a ‘right’ feedback provides more information to the learning process, compared to a ‘wrong’ feedback. This was accompanied by a differential activation in the ACC, PFC and striatum. Importantly, in this context, punishment avoidance is equally rewarding, and indeed I found that choice behavior and the neural networks underlying choice and feedback processing are similar in the two scenarios – for punishments and rewards. Overall, my work develops and suggests computational and neural mechanisms for specific roles of the information carried by prediction-errors. These findings can enhance our understanding of the fundamental roles of valence and information gain during learning and decision making. Zoom link to join: https://weizmann.zoom.us/j/92234357805?pwd=aVkrR21CSUVtVS9tSEJYRDkwOFRidz09 Meeting ID: 922 3435 7805 Password: 648092

lecture

Tuesday, May 25, 2021
12:30

Technologies for all-optical interrogation of neural circuits in behaving animalsTechnologies for all-optical interrogation of neural circuits in behaving animals

Dr. Adam Packer

lecture

Tuesday, May 18, 2021
15:00 - 16:00

Neural mechanisms of aggression

Prof. Lin Dayu

lecture

Tuesday, May 11, 2021
15:00 - 16:00

Using Deep Nets to Understand Visual Recognition in Mind and Brain

Prof. Nancy Kanwisher

lecture

Thursday, May 6, 2021
12:30 - 13:30

Neuropixels probes - two stories about development and use

Dr. Michael Okun

lecture

Tuesday, May 4, 2021
15:00

The Vagus Nerve and Physiology of Reward and Digestion

Prof. Ivan E de Araujo

lecture

Tuesday, April 27, 2021
12:30 - 13:30

Neural correlates of future weight loss reveal a possible role for brain-gastric interactions

Prof. Galia Avidan

Lifestyle dietary interventions are an essential practice in treating obesity, hence neural factors that may assist in predicting individual treatment success are of great significance. Here, in a prospective, open-label, three arms study, we examined the correlation between brain resting-state functional connectivity measured at baseline and weight loss following 6 months of lifestyle intervention in 92 overweight participants. We report a robust subnetwork composed mainly of sensory and motor cortical regions, whose edges correlated with future weight loss. This effect was found regardless of intervention group. Importantly, this main finding was further corroborated using a stringent connectivity-based prediction model assessed with cross-validation thus attesting to its robustness. The engagement of senso-motor regions in this subnetwork is consistent with the over-sensitivity to food cues theory of weight regulation. Finally, we tested an additional hypothesis regarding the role of brain-gastric interaction in this subnetwork, considering recent findings of a cortical network synchronized with gastric activity. Accordingly, we found a significant spatial overlap with the subnetwork reported in the present study. Moreover, power in the gastric basal electric frequency within our reported subnetwork negatively correlated with future weight loss. This finding was specific to the weight loss related subnetwork and to the gastric basal frequency. These findings should be further corroborated by combining direct recordings of gastric activity in future studies. Taken together, these intriguing results may have important implications for our understanding of the etiology of obesity and the mechanism of response to dietary intervention as well as to interoceptive perception. Zoom link to join: https://weizmann.zoom.us/j/96608033618?pwd=SEdJUkR2ZzRBZ3laUUdGbWR1VFJTdz09 Meeting ID: 966 0803 3618 Password: 564068 Host: Dr. Rita Schmidt rita.schmidt@weizmann.ac.il tel: 9070

lecture

Tuesday, April 20, 2021
12:30

New insights on continuous attractor neural networks

Prof. Yoram Burak

lecture

Monday, April 19, 2021
15:00 - 16:00

Uncovering the Boundaries of Olfactory Perception

Aharon Ravia (PhD Thesis Defense)

lecture

Tuesday, April 13, 2021
12:30

Dissecting the functional organization of sensory neurons in gut-brain communication

Dr. Henning Fenselau

lecture

Tuesday, April 6, 2021
12:30

Cellular and circuit basis of distinct memory formation in the hippocampus

Dr. Christoph Schmidt-Hieber

lecture

Thursday, March 25, 2021
12:30 - 13:30

Re-rendering Reality

Prof. Tali Dekel

lecture

Thursday, March 25, 2021
15:00 - 16:00

Uncovering Olfactory Perception Boundaries

Aharon Ravia (PhD Thesis Defense)

lecture

Tuesday, March 16, 2021
12:30

Cortical Layer 1 – The Memory Layer?

Dr. Guy Doron

lecture

Tuesday, March 9, 2021
12:30 - 13:30

Dissecting the Alzheimer’s brain: from disease single cells to cellular communities

Prof. Naomi Habib

lecture

Tuesday, March 2, 2021
14:30 - 15:30

How People Decide What They Want to Know: Information-Seeking and the Human Brain

Prof. Tali Sharot

lecture

Tuesday, February 23, 2021
12:30 - 13:30

Memristors in the Neuromorphic Era

Prof. Shahar Kvatinsky

lecture

Tuesday, February 16, 2021
12:30 - 13:30

Sleep: sensory disconnection and memory consolidation

Prof. Yuval Nir

A fundamental feature of sleep is that a sensory stimulus does not reliably affect behavior or subjective experience. What mediates such “sensory disconnection”? Do similar processes occur during anesthesia, cognitive lapses, and some neuropsychiatric disorders? In a series of studies in humans and rodents, we compared neuronal responses to identical auditory stimuli across wakefulness and sleep. In A1, early single-neuron spiking responses are largely comparable across wakefulness, natural sleep, and light anesthesia. However, robust differences emerge in downstream high-level regions and late-responding neurons, and in top-down response signatures, suggesting that sleep impairs effective cortical connectivity. We reconcile the apparent discrepancy with the classic “thalamic gating” notion by showing that in contrast to natural sleep, deep anesthesia does lead to attenuation already in A1. Next, we show that reduced locus coeruleus-noradrenaline (LC-NE) activity during sleep mediates sensory disconnection. We find that in freely behaving rats, LC-NE activity is a key mechanism that determines the likelihood of sensory-evoked awakenings (SEA): the level of ongoing tonic LC activity during sleep anticipates SEAs, while minimal optogenetic LC activation or silencing increases and decreases SEA, respectively. In humans, pharmacological manipulation of NE levels modulates sensory perception and late sensory responses, suggesting that NE links sensory awareness to external world events. We are exploring novel methods such as transcutaneous vagal nerve stimulation to modulate LC-NE non-invasively in humans. In the last part of the talk I will present recent results on sleep and memory consolidation. Using unilateral olfactory stimulation during sleep we find that ‘local’ targeted memory reactivation (TMR) in human sleep selectively promotes specific memories associated with regional sleep oscillations. In epilepsy patients implanted with depth electrodes we investigate the effects of intracranial electrical closed loop stimulation during sleep on memory and hippocampal-neocortical dialogue at single-neuron resolution. Zoom link to join: https://weizmann.zoom.us/j/96608033618?pwd=SEdJUkR2ZzRBZ3laUUdGbWR1VFJTdz09 Meeting ID: 966 0803 3618 Password: 564068 Host: Dr. Rita Schmidt rita.schmidt@weizmann.ac.il tel: 9070

lecture

Tuesday, February 9, 2021
12:00 - 13:00

On places and borders in the brain

Prof. Dori Derdikman

lecture

Tuesday, January 26, 2021
12:30 - 13:30

Layers of primary visual cortex as a window into internal models about predicted and simulated environments

Prof. Lars Muckli

lecture

Tuesday, January 19, 2021
12:30

What can fishes teach us about the brain?

Prof. Ronen Segev

lecture

Tuesday, January 19, 2021
10:00 - 11:00

The Cortical-Hippocampal Interplay during Episodic Memory Retrieval in Humans

Yitzhak Norman (PhD Thesis Defense)

One of the most remarkable functions of the human brain is the ability to recall a personal experience from the past and reenact it vividly in our mind, in a way that allows us to reflect upon the memory and derive from it relevant information that can guide our future behavior. My doctoral research explored the neuronal mechanisms that enable this core cognitive function in the human brain. Using rare electrophysiological recordings obtained from neurosurgical patients for clinical purposes I investigated and characterized the complex bidirectional interactions that occur between the hippocampus and the cerebral cortex during retrieval of conscious, reportable memories. My results are twofold. I first show that 1-2 seconds before the onset of individual recollections the hippocampus elicits transient electrical oscillations known as Sharp Wave Ripples (SWRs). Such oscillatory events have been extensively studied in animal models in recent years and were shown to reflect massive synchronization events during which millions of pyramidal neurons on the hippocampus output pathway fire simultaneously. My results demonstrate that the SWR events are selective to memory contents and play a major role in coordinating the re-activation of hippocampal-neocortical memory representations during retrieval. I show a tight coupling between SWR events and visual cortex activation, and reveal a massive peri-ripple activation of the default mode network. Second, I show that the cortex uses a flexible, goal-directed, "baseline shift" mechanism that allows the imposition of predefined boundaries on spontaneous recollections. Specifically, the results demonstrate that when free recall is limited to a particular category, the average neuronal activity level in cortical sites that represent the targeted category is steadily and significantly enhanced throughout the free recall period. Such steady-state excitatory enhancement is likely to introduce a category-specific bias in the cortical input arriving at the hippocampus, which may facilitate the reactivation of memory traces belonging to the targeted category and not others. Altogether, the results place hippocampal SWRs firmly as a central mechanism in the retrieval of human declarative memory. They demonstrate a central role for SWRs in coordinating the hippocampus-cortical dialogue during recollection and point to a flexible "baseline shift" mechanism that can account for the remarkable ease and precision by which we can constrain this dialogue to support retrieval goals. Zoom link to join: https://weizmann.zoom.us/j/92146113977?pwd=VmhuMEhBcTRYZDNWMVJ4bGJrR0lIdz09 Meeting ID: 92146113977 Password: 803220

lecture

Tuesday, January 5, 2021
12:30 - 13:30

Diffusion properties of intracellular metabolites: compartment specific probes for cell structure and physiology

Prof. Itamar Ronen

Diffusion weighted MRI (DWI) is the main neuroimaging modality used in non-invasive investigations of tissue microstructure, and provides quantitative cytomorphological information on a spatial scale well below the nominal resolution of MRI. The main limitation of DWI is its lack of compartmental specificity, as its “reporter molecule” is water, ubiquitous in all tissue compartments and cell types. Brain metabolites are mostly confined to the intracellular space, and their concentrations vary across cell types. Several metabolites give rise to quantifiable magnetic resonance spectroscopy (MRS) signatures, and are thus considered as compartment-specific and sometimes cell-specific markers. Sensitization of MRS to diffusion results in a set of diffusion properties for a variety of intracellular metabolites, from which microstructural information specific to the intracellular space can be obtained. A proper choice of experimental settings can be used to investigate properties that range from cytoplasmic viscosity and tortuosity of the intracellular space, to overall cell morphological features. The specificity of some metabolites to different cell types such as neurons and astrocytes opens the way to studying morphological properties of different cell populations and monitoring their modulation by physiological changes in health and disease. The presentation will introduce methodological concepts of diffusion-weighted MRS, followed by simple examples that demonstrate the unique ability of diffusion-weighted MRS to characterize cell-type specific structural features. Special emphasis will be bestowed on experimental and modelling frameworks that merge the specificity of diffusion-weighted MRS with the sensitivity of DWI to gain insights on tissue microstructure beyond what each method can separately provide. Zoom link to join:https://weizmann.zoom.us/j/96608033618?pwd=SEdJUkR2ZzRBZ3laUUdGbWR1VFJTdz09 Meeting ID: 966 0803 3618 Password: 564068 Host: Dr. Rita Schmidt rita.schmidt@weizmann.ac.il tel: 9070

lecture

Tuesday, December 29, 2020
12:30 - 13:00

Involvement of hypothalamic neurons in murine social decision making

Prof. Shlomo Wagner

lecture

Thursday, December 24, 2020
15:00 - 16:00

Chemosignals are a form of human social communication

Eva Mishor (PhD Thesis Defense)

lecture

Wednesday, December 23, 2020
10:00 - 11:00

Deciphering the sexually dimorphic properties of a sex-shared interneuron

lecture

Tuesday, December 22, 2020
12:30 - 13:30

Behavioural signatures of a developing neural code

Prof. Lilach Avitan

lecture

Wednesday, December 16, 2020
14:00 - 15:00

Coding in the ever-changing world: a mechanistic view of retinal dynamic computation of motion

Lea Ankri (PhD Thesis Defense)

lecture

Tuesday, December 8, 2020
12:30 - 13:30

Short and prolonged dynamics of taste processing in health and disease

Dr. Anan Moran

lecture

Tuesday, December 1, 2020
14:00

Understanding the distinctive neuronal epigenome

Prof. Harrison Gabel

lecture

Tuesday, November 10, 2020
12:30

Seeing the big picture - time scales of automatic prediction in temporal and frontal cortex

Prof. Leon Y. Deouell

lecture

Tuesday, November 3, 2020
12:30

Immune therapy for Alzheimer’s disease and Dementia: From the bench to the bedside

Dr. Michal Schwartz

lecture

Thursday, June 25, 2020
16:00

High-dimensional geometry of visual cortex

Dr. Carsen Stringer

lecture

Monday, June 8, 2020
10:00

Mean-field models for finite-size populations of spiking neurons

Dr. Tilo Schwalger

lecture

Tuesday, May 19, 2020
12:30

Individual differences in decision-making under uncertainty: a neuroeconomic approach

Prof. Ifat Levy

lecture

Tuesday, May 12, 2020
12:30

From sensory perception to decision making in bats

Prof. Yossi Yovel

lecture

Tuesday, March 3, 2020
12:30

Gerhard M.J. Schmidt Lecture Hall

From Cognition to Depression: Using Magnetic Resonance Spectroscopy to Study In-vivo Neurochemistry

Dr. Assaf Tal

lecture

Tuesday, February 25, 2020
12:30

Gerhard M.J. Schmidt Lecture Hall

Synaptic markers in the reward system for the predisposition to overeat

Dr. Yonatan Kupchik

lecture

Tuesday, February 11, 2020
12:30

Gerhard M.J. Schmidt Lecture Hall

A common neuronal mechanism underlying free and creative behavior in the human brain

Prof. Rafael Malach

lecture

Wednesday, February 5, 2020
15:00

Nella and Leon Benoziyo Building for Brain Research

Effects of dopamine on response properties of distinct types of retinal ganglion cells

Lior Pinkus (PhD Thesis Defense)

lecture

Tuesday, February 4, 2020
12:30

Gerhard M.J. Schmidt Lecture Hall

Whole-brain fMRI of the Behaving Mouse

Prof. Itamar Kahn

lecture

Thursday, January 30, 2020
10:30

Nella and Leon Benoziyo Building for Brain Research

PhD Thesis Defense - Spatial and temporal integration in perceptual calibration

Ron Dekel (PhD Thesis Defense)

lecture

Tuesday, January 28, 2020
14:00

Gerhard M.J. Schmidt Lecture Hall

New methods for identifying latent manifold structure from neural data

Prof. Jonathan Pillow

lecture

Tuesday, January 28, 2020
12:30

Gerhard M.J. Schmidt Lecture Hall

Imaging single cells in live models for neurodevelopmental and sleep disorders

Prof. Lior Applebaum

lecture

Monday, January 27, 2020
14:00

Gerhard M.J. Schmidt Lecture Hall

Inferring the dynamics of learning from sensory decision-making behavior

Prof. Jonathan Pillow

lecture

Tuesday, January 21, 2020
12:30

Gerhard M.J. Schmidt Lecture Hall

Visualizing activity dependent signaling dynamics in intact neuronal circuits

Dr. Tal Laviv

lecture

Sunday, January 19, 2020
11:30

Gerhard M.J. Schmidt Lecture Hall

PhD Thesis Defense - Brainstem encoding of active sensing in the vibrissal system

Coralie Ebert (PhD Thesis Defense)

lecture

Thursday, January 16, 2020
14:30

Nella and Leon Benoziyo Building for Brain Research

Changes in electrophysiological activity in the amygdala - dACC circuit under the effects of different anesthetic drugs at different doses

Eilat Kahana (PhD Thesis Defense)

lecture

Tuesday, January 14, 2020
12:30

Gerhard M.J. Schmidt Lecture Hall

From connectome to function: connectivity features underlying neuronal population dynamics in the nematode C. elegans

Prof. Manuel Zimmer

lecture

Monday, January 13, 2020
13:30

The David Lopatie Hall of Graduate Studies

MSc Thesis Defense/PhD Proposal - Auditory response to sounds originating from whisking against objects

Ben Efron (MSc Thesis Defense/PhD Proposal)

Integrating information from different sensory systems is essential for faithful representation of the external world. Different senses represent different aspects of the surrounding world. They operate at different time scales, and integrate information presented at different distances from the body. For example, tactile sensation enables sensing very proximal objects, whereas the auditory system allows us to sense very distant objects as well. In many instances, however, we simultaneously sense the same object using two or more modalities. This occurs, for example, when we use a hammer. In this case, we watch our movements and get tactile and auditory feedbacks for fine-tuning and precision. In this work, we are interested in revealing how the primary sensory cortices of both the auditory and somatosensory vibrissa systems integrate information they receive from a given source, in this case when the animal touches an object by moving its whiskers. We ask if such touch signals can produce audible signals that can be perceived by the auditory system. Towards this aim, we severed the infraorbital nerve (ION) of mice to eliminate somatosensory sensation going from the whiskers and the pad to the cortex. We then head fixed the mice and presented a piece of aluminum foil to the whiskers. Our preliminary results show that when the mouse whisked against the object it produced audible sound as we examined by using highly sensitive ultrasonic microphones. This sound differs from the environment both in amplitude and frequency range. Many neurons in the primary auditory cortex responded to the sound generated by the contact of the whiskers with the object. We propose that mice can use the two sensory systems in a complimentary manner in order to produce comprehensive representation of their proximal environment, perhaps similar to the way cane is used by visually impaired people. To demonstrate if the animal can use this auditory sensation, we will train head fixed and ION severed mice to respond to objects that produce sound by the whiskers’ touch. Showing that the auditory sensation can be relevant for the animal in identifying objects.

lecture

Thursday, January 9, 2020
14:30 - 15:30

Gerhard M.J. Schmidt Lecture Hall

Denise Cai: Linking memories across time and by Tristan Shuman: Breakdown of spatial coding and interneuron synchronization in epileptic mice

Denise Cai and Tristan Shuman

Denise Cai: Linking memories across time The compilation of memories, collected and aggregated across a lifetime defines our human experience. My lab is interested in dissecting how memories are stored, updated, integrated and retrieved across a lifetime. Recent studies suggest that a shared neural ensemble may link distinct memories encoded close in time. Using in vivo calcium imaging (with open-source Miniscopes in freely behaving mice), TetTag transgenic system, chemogenetics, electrophysiology and novel behavioral designs, we tested how hippocampal networks temporally link memories. Multiple convergent findings suggest that contextual memories encoded close in time are linked by directing storage into overlapping hippocampal ensembles, such that the recall of one memory can trigger the recall of another temporally-related memory. Alteration of this process (e.g. during aging, PTSD, etc) affect the temporal structure of memories, thus impairing efficient recall of related information. Tristan Shuman: Breakdown of spatial coding and interneuron synchronization in epileptic mice Temporal lobe epilepsy causes severe cognitive deficits yet the circuit mechanisms that alter cognition remain unknown. We hypothesized that the death and reorganization of inhibitory connections during epileptogenesis may disrupt synchrony of hippocampal inhibition. To test this, we simultaneously recorded from CA1 and dentate gyrus (DG) in pilocarpine-treated epileptic mice with silicon probes during head-fixed virtual navigation. We found desynchronized interneuron firing between CA1 and DG in epileptic mice. Since hippocampal interneurons control information processing, we tested whether CA1 spatial coding was altered in this desynchronized circuit using a novel wire-free Miniscope. We found that CA1 place cells in epileptic mice were unstable and completely remapped across a week. This place cell instability emerged ~6 weeks after status epilepticus, well after the onset of chronic spontaneous seizures and interneuron death. Finally, our CA1 network model showed that desynchronized inputs can impair information content and stability of CA1 place cells. Together, these results demonstrate that temporally precise intra-hippocampal communication is critical for spatial processing and hippocampal desynchronization contributes to spatial coding deficits in epileptic mice.

lecture

Thursday, January 9, 2020
11:00

Gerhard M.J. Schmidt Lecture Hall

Imaging deep: sensory and state coding in subcortical circuits

Dr. Jan Grundemann

lecture

Wednesday, January 1, 2020
12:30

Gerhard M.J. Schmidt Lecture Hall

The Use of Mental Imagery in Enhancing Human Motor and Cognitive Functions: From Dancers to Parkinson’s Disease

Amit Abraham

lecture

Tuesday, December 31, 2019
12:30

Gerhard M.J. Schmidt Lecture Hall

Wearable high resolution electrophysiology for recording freely behaving humans

Prof. Yael Hanein

lecture

Tuesday, December 24, 2019
12:30

Gerhard M.J. Schmidt Lecture Hall

How do We Recognize Faces? Insights from biological and artificial face recognition systems

Prof. Galit Yovel

lecture

Monday, December 23, 2019
12:45

Gerhard M.J. Schmidt Lecture Hall

A visual motion detector: From the connectome to a theory of transformation learning

Dr. Dmitri "Mitya" Chklovskii

lecture

Wednesday, December 18, 2019
15:15

The David Lopatie Hall of Graduate Studies

Decipher the properties of sex-shared yet dimorphic neuronal circuits

Vladyslava Pechuk (MSc Thesis Defense/PhD Proposal)

lecture

Tuesday, December 17, 2019
12:15

Gerhard M.J. Schmidt Lecture Hall

Hidden neural states underlie canary song syntax

Dr. Yarden Cohen

lecture

Monday, December 9, 2019
10:30

Nella and Leon Benoziyo Building for Brain Research

The temporal structure of the code of large neural populations

Ehud Karpas (PhD Thesis Defense)

lecture

Tuesday, December 3, 2019
12:30

Gerhard M.J. Schmidt Lecture Hall

Rodents' social recognition: what the nose knows…and what it doesn't

Prof. Shlomo Wagner

lecture

Tuesday, November 26, 2019
12:30

Gerhard M.J. Schmidt Lecture Hall

The Neurobiology of Personality: Using AI to link Genes, Behavior, and Positive-Psychology

Dr. Oren Forkosh

lecture

Tuesday, November 19, 2019
12:30

Gerhard M.J. Schmidt Lecture Hall

Dynamic functional organization of midbrain dopamine neurons during complex behavior

Dr. Ben Engelhard

lecture

Tuesday, November 12, 2019
12:30

Gerhard M.J. Schmidt Lecture Hall

The prospect of immunotherapy to combat Alzheimer's disease and dementia: the key role of the brain's choroid plexus

Dr. Michal Schwartz

lecture

Thursday, November 7, 2019
11:00 - 12:00

Nella and Leon Benoziyo Building for Brain Research

Learning and retaining representations in redundant networks

lecture

Tuesday, November 5, 2019
12:30

Gerhard M.J. Schmidt Lecture Hall

Collective Conflict Resolution in Groups on the Move

Prof. Nir Gov

lecture

Tuesday, October 29, 2019
14:00

Gerhard M.J. Schmidt Lecture Hall

"Sporadic Alzheimer's disease – does it start with altered ubiquitin signaling?”

Prof. Michael H. Glickman

lecture

Thursday, October 10, 2019
12:00

Nella and Leon Benoziyo Building for Brain Research

Neural and emotional states under social interactions

Raviv Pryluk (PhD Thesis Defense)

Primates live in large and complex social groups. It has been argued that this has led to evolutionary pressure on the brain and that there are networks that have been evolved to play an important role in social cognition and behaviors. Social deficits are widely known in many brain disorders such as autism and anxiety. Here we focused on two brain areas that were shown to play a crucial role in social interactions – the amygdala and the anterior-cingulate-cortex (ACC). Our goal was to understand the neural codes in these two regions and especially under social interactions: 1. Computational techniques that allow the comparison of on-going neural activity across these brain regions and species based on information theory measures was developed. We found that human neurons better utilize information capacity (efficient coding) than macaque neurons in both regions, and that ACC neurons are more efficient than amygdala neurons, in both species. In contrast, we found more overlap in the neural vocabulary and more synchronized activity (robustness coding) in monkeys in both regions, and in the amygdala of both species. Our findings demonstrate a tradeoff between robustness and efficiency across species and regions. We suggest that this tradeoff can contribute to the differential cognitive functions between species, and can underlie the complementary roles of the amygdala and the ACC. It can also contribute to the fragility underlying human psychopathologies. For more, see https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0092867418316465 2. A novel electrophysiology experiment that induced real and live social interactions between humans and primates was conducted. In each daily session, we recorded neural responses in monkeys to the eye-gaze, direct or averted, of human intruders, and compared it with the responses to valence conditioning, aversive and appetitive. We found that the primate amygdala, but not the ACC, encodes eye-gaze; this coding is shared with valence coding through two mechanisms – “shared-activity” at the expectation epoch (conditioned stimulus, CS) and “shared-intensity” after the outcome (unconditioned stimulus, US). These shared mechanisms can open an indirect window for future therapy. For more, see https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/736462v1 3. We developed behavioral methods and algorithms to evaluate primates’ emotional states, using the analysis of facial expressions and a number of physiological parameters such as heart rate and respiratory rate. The primates’ emotional state evaluation will be the substrate for future studies that will investigate the neural correlates of these states.

lecture

Monday, September 23, 2019
14:00 - 15:00

Nella and Leon Benoziyo Building for Brain Research

Tonic GABAA receptor mediated conductance at cellular and network levels

Prof. Alexey Semyanov

lecture

Monday, August 12, 2019
13:30 - 14:30

Nella and Leon Benoziyo Building for Brain Research

Intracranial electrophysiology of speech perception and production

,Dr. Adeen Flinker

lecture

Thursday, June 27, 2019
14:00

Arthur and Rochelle Belfer Building for Biomedical Research

Cytokines as neuromodulators: How immunity affects brain function

Prof. Jonathan Kipnis

lecture

Tuesday, June 25, 2019
14:00

Arthur and Rochelle Belfer Building for Biomedical Research

The Role of DOC2B in Vesicle Fusion and Asynchronous Neurotransmitter Release

Prof. Uri Ashery

lecture

Monday, June 17, 2019
11:00

Max and Lillian Candiotty Building

Brain control and readout at biologically relevant resolutions

Dr. Or Shemesh

Understanding the neural basis of behavior requires studying the activity of neural networks. Within a neural network, single neurons can have different firing properties, different neural codes and different synaptic counterparts. Therefore, it will be useful to readout from the brain and control it at a single-cell resolution. However, until recently, single cell readout and control in the brain were not feasible. The first scientific problem we addressed, is this regard, was the low spatial resolution of light based neural activation. Opsins are genetically encoded light switches for neurons that cause neural firing, or inhibition, when illuminated (and are therefore called “opto-genetic” molecules). However, optogenetic experiments are biased by ‘crosstalk’: the accidental stimulation of dozens of cells other than the cell of interest during neuron photostimulation. This is caused by expression of optogenetic molecules through the entirety of the cells, from the round cell body (“soma”) to the elongated neural processes. Our solution was molecular-focusing: by limiting the powerful opsin CoChR to the cell body of the neuron, we discovered that we could excite the cell body of interest alone. This molecule, termed “somatic-CoChR” was stimulated with state of the art holographic stimulation to enable millisecond temporal control which can emulate actual brain activity. Thus, we achieved for the first time single cell optogenteic stimulation at sub millisecond temporal precision. A second challenge was imaging the activity of multiple cells at a single cell resolution. The most popular neural activity indicator is the genetically encoded calcium sensor GCaMP, due to its optical brightness and high sensitivity. However, the fluorescent signal originating from a cell body is contaminated with multiple other fluorescent signals that originate from neurites of neighboring cells. This leads to a variety of artifacts including non-physiological correlation between cells and an impaired ability to distinguish between signals coming from different cells. To solve this, we made a cell body-targeted GCaMP. We screened over 30 different targeting motifs for somatic localization of GCaMP, and termed the best one, in terms of somatic localization, “SomaGCaMP”. This molecule was tested in live mice and zebrafish and can report the activity of thousands of neurons at a single cell resolution. A third challenge was voltage imaging in the brain, since genetically encoded indicators still suffered from either low sensitivity, or from low brightness. To record voltage, we used nitrogen vacancy nanodiamonds, known to be both very bright and sensitive to electric fields. Our aim was to bring the nanodiamonds to the membrane so the large electric field created by the action potential could impinge upon them and change their fluorescence. By making the nanodiamonds hydrophobic through surface chemistry modification, and inserting them into micelles, we labeled neural membranes with monodisperse diamonds for hours. We are now in the process of assessing the sensitivity of the nanodiamonds to the membrane voltage. Altogether, thinking backwards from fundamental limitations in neuroscience is instrumental in deriving strategies to fix these limitations and study the brain. In the future, we will use similar approaches to study and heal brain disease, at single-cell and subcellular resolutions.

lecture

Monday, June 17, 2019
16:00 - 17:00

Nella and Leon Benoziyo Building for Brain Research

Environmental affordances and the neural representation of complex space

Prof. Kate Jeffery

lecture

Monday, June 17, 2019
13:30

Arthur and Rochelle Belfer Building for Biomedical Research

Externally and internally induced arousal states modify spontaneous and evoked synaptic activities in the mouse somatosensory cortex

Akiva Rapaport (PhD Thesis Defense)

Behavioral states, such as arousal and attention are defined by a set of psychological and physiological variables. They have profound effects on sensation, perception, learning, and cognition. In the brain, global states are characterized by distinct cortical and hippocampal EEG patterns. These changes that are clearly observed in the local field potential (LFP) are also evident in network and cellular dynamics. At the population level, the more active states are manifested as asynchronous neuronal firing between neighboring cells. At the cellular level, the membrane potential during active states is characterized by a continuous depolarized state, high synaptic ac! tivity, reduced variance and reduced membrane potential correlations between cells. In recent years it has been demonstrated in rodents that pupil size is a robust indicator of a range of neural activity from neuromodulator release to cortical neuronal membrane potential. There has been some debate in the field regarding to what extent the effects of locomotion on cortical dynamics are due to arousal and what can be attributed to locomotion. Furthermore, in some studies cortical dynamics were evaluated while the animals transitioned spontaneously between states and in others, states of arousal were externally induced. Additionally, different effects have been reported in the auditory and visual cortex. Therefore, we wanted to more finely differentiate between different states and evaluate the effect of state on the somatosensory cortex. To accomplish this we conducted intracellular recordings in the barrel cortex as well as extracellular LFP recordings in Layer IV of the barrel cortex in awake head fixed mice. We monitored pupil size as an indicator for state of arousal as well as tracking locomotion. We found that there is a significant correlation between membrane potential of cells in barrel cortex and pupil size. Neurons were significantly more depolarized as the animal was in a greater state of arousal. This change was not affected by the mode of inducement of arousal, be it a spontaneous transition into a state of arousal or one externally induced. However, the effect was abolished by the occurrence of locomotion. We also found that responses to sensory stimuli are increased during a state of arousal but not in a state of hyper-arousal. Inducing the state externally minimized this effect and if the animal is locomoting then the increase in sensory responses is abolished. We further found that when the animal is in a greater state of arousal there is less synchronization as indicated by the decrease in correlation between membrane potential and LFP. Even more startlingly, we found that the polarity of the cross-correlation was reversed during hyperarousal. This would strongly suggest a reorganization of the laminar network across different states.

lecture

Sunday, June 16, 2019
11:00

Camelia Botnar Building

A Comprehensive Mechanistic Biological Theory of Brain Function

Prof. Ari Rappoport

conference

Tuesday, June 11, 2019
08:30 - 18:00

The David Lopatie Conference Centre

Memory In The Brain: From Learning To Forgetting

lecture

Tuesday, June 4, 2019
14:00 - 15:00

Arthur and Rochelle Belfer Building for Biomedical Research

Memory networks in the human brain

Prof. Michael Kahana

lecture

Thursday, May 30, 2019
12:30

Nella and Leon Benoziyo Building for Brain Research

Multisensory perception: Exploring space and time

Prof. David I. Shore

lecture

Tuesday, May 28, 2019
14:00

Arthur and Rochelle Belfer Building for Biomedical Research

Stability and Plasticity of Chemosensory Stimulus Representations

Dr. Yoram Ben-Shaul

lecture

Sunday, May 26, 2019
11:00 - 12:00

Arthur and Rochelle Belfer Building for Biomedical Research

Neuronal membrane proteasomes and their released extracellular peptides modulate nervous system signaling

Dr. Seth S. Margolis

lecture

Tuesday, May 21, 2019
14:00 - 15:00

Arthur and Rochelle Belfer Building for Biomedical Research

Mesoscale dissection of neuronal populations underlying complex behaviors

Dr. Ariel Gilad

lecture

Tuesday, May 7, 2019
14:00

Arthur and Rochelle Belfer Building for Biomedical Research

Sex, alcohol and fly mind

Dr. Galit Ophir

lecture

Tuesday, April 30, 2019
14:00

Arthur and Rochelle Belfer Building for Biomedical Research

A century-old assumption regarding neurons and brain learning is undermined by new types of experiments

Prof. Ido Kanter

lecture

Tuesday, April 16, 2019
14:00

Camelia Botnar Building

Brain cell type analysis and why it matters for disease

Prof. Jens Hjerling-Leffler

lecture

Tuesday, April 2, 2019
14:00

Arthur and Rochelle Belfer Building for Biomedical Research

Toward a high-fidelity artificial retina

Prof. E. J. Chichilnisky

lecture

Wednesday, March 27, 2019
13:00

Arthur and Rochelle Belfer Building for Biomedical Research

Neural systems underlying reinforcement learning

Prof. Bruno Averbeck

lecture

Tuesday, March 26, 2019
14:00

Nella and Leon Benoziyo Building for Brain Research

A fresh old look on Vision

Prof. Michael Herzog

lecture

Tuesday, March 12, 2019
14:00

Arthur and Rochelle Belfer Building for Biomedical Research

The odor identity puzzle: How odor information can be shared across hemispheres if there are no cortical odor maps?

Dr. Rafi Haddad

lecture

Sunday, March 10, 2019
12:30

Nella and Leon Benoziyo Building for Brain Research

Photovoltaic Restoration of Sight in Retinal Degeneration

Prof. Daniel Palanker

Retinal degenerative diseases lead to blindness due to loss of the “image capturing” photoreceptors, while neurons in the “image-processing” inner retinal layers are relatively well preserved. Information can be reintroduced into the visual system using electrical stimulation of the surviving inner retinal neurons. Some electronic retinal prosthetic systems have been already approved for clinical use, but they provide low resolution and involve very difficult implantation procedures. We developed a photovoltaic subretinal prosthesis which converts light into pulsed electric current, stimulating the nearby inner retinal neurons. Visual information is projected onto the retina from video goggles using pulsed nearinfrared (~880nm) light. This design avoids the use of bulky electronics and wiring, thereby greatly reducing the surgical complexity. Optical activation of the photovoltaic pixels allows scaling the implants to thousands of electrodes. In preclinical studies, we found that prosthetic vision with subretinal implants preserves many features of natural vision, including flicker fusion at high frequencies (>20 Hz), adaptation to static images, antagonistic center-surround organization and nonlinear summation of subunits in receptive fields, providing high spatial resolution. Results of the clinical trial with our implants (PRIMA, Pixium Vision) having 100µm pixels, as well as preclinical measurements with 75 and 55µm pixels, confirm that spatial resolution of prosthetic vision can reach the sampling density limit. For a broad acceptance of this technology by patients who lost central vision due to age-related macular degeneration, visual acuity should exceed 20/100, which requires pixels smaller than 25µm. I will describe the fundamental limitations in electro-neural interfaces and 3-dimensional configurations which should enable such a high spatial resolution. Ease of implantation of these wireless arrays, combined with high resolution opens the door to highly functional restoration of sight.

lecture

Tuesday, February 26, 2019
09:00 - 10:00

Wolfson Building for Biological Research

From brain organoids to animal chimera: Novel platforms for studying human brain development and disease

Dr. Abed A. Mansour

lecture

Sunday, February 24, 2019
10:00 - 11:00

Wolfson Building for Biological Research

Computational Design Principles of Cognition

Dr. Yuval Hart

lecture

Tuesday, February 12, 2019
16:00 - 17:00

Nella and Leon Benoziyo Building for Brain Research

Regulatory Mechanisms of Myeloid Cells in the Central Nervous System

Hila Ben-Yehuda (PhD Thesis Defense)

lecture

Tuesday, February 12, 2019
14:00 - 15:00

Arthur and Rochelle Belfer Building for Biomedical Research

Action evaluation, planning and replay

Prof. Nathaniel Daw

lecture

Tuesday, February 5, 2019
14:00

Arthur and Rochelle Belfer Building for Biomedical Research

Time-resolved neural activity and plasticity in behaving rodents using high field MRI

Dr. Noam Shemesh

lecture

Tuesday, January 29, 2019
14:00

Arthur and Rochelle Belfer Building for Biomedical Research

Neuromodulation of dendritic excitability

Dr. Mickey London

lecture

Tuesday, January 22, 2019
12:30

Nella and Leon Benoziyo Building for Brain Research

Synaptic tenacity: When everything changes, do things really stay the same?

Prof. Noam Ziv

lecture

Sunday, January 13, 2019
12:30

Nella and Leon Benoziyo Building for Brain Research

The development of the human ventral visual stream

Prof. Kalanit Grill-Spector

lecture

Wednesday, January 9, 2019
14:00

Arthur and Rochelle Belfer Building for Biomedical Research

A neural circuit signaling and limiting fluid intake

Prof. Sung-Yon Kim

lecture

Wednesday, January 9, 2019
10:15

Nella and Leon Benoziyo Building for Brain Research

BLOOD AND STRANGERS – THEIR BEHAVIORAL AND NEURAL CONSEQUENCES

Dr. Johan N. Lundstrom

lecture

Tuesday, January 1, 2019
14:00

Arthur and Rochelle Belfer Building for Biomedical Research

Neuro-Behavioral Constraints on the Acquisition and Generation of Motor Skills

Dr. Maria Korman

Acquisition of motor skills often involves the concatenation of single movements into sequences. Along the course of learning, sequential performance becomes progressively faster and smoother, presumably by optimization of both motor planning and motor execution. Following its encoding during training, “how-to” memory undergoes consolidation, reflecting transformations in performance and its neurobiological underpinnings over time. This offline post-training memory process is characterized by two phenomena: reduced sensitivity to interference and the emergence of delayed, typically overnight, gains in performance. Successful learning is a result of strict control (gating) over the on-line and off-line stages of the experience-driven changes in the brain’s organization (neural plasticity). Factors, such as the amount of practice, the passage of time and the affordance of sleep and factors specific to the learning environment may selectively affect, – block or accelerate, - the expression of delayed gains in motor performance. These factors interact in a complex, non-linear manner. Developmental and inter-individual differences impose additional constraints on memory processes (e.g., age, chronotype, clinical condition). High-level reorganization of the movements as a unit following practice was shown to be subserved by optimization of planning and execution of individual movements. Temporal and kinematic analysis of performance demonstrated that only the offline inter-movement interval shortening (co-articulation) is selectively blocked by the interference experience, while velocity and amplitude, comprising movement time, are interference–insensitive. Sleep, including a day-time sleep, reduces the susceptibility of the memory trace to retroactive behavioural interference and also accelerates the expression of delayed gains in performance. Activity in cortico-striatal areas that was disrupted during the day due to interference and accentuated in the absence of a day-time sleep is restored overnight. Additional line of experiments showed that on-line environmental noise during training (vibro-auditory task-irrelevant stimulation) may be an important modulator of memory consolidation; its impact is ambiguous, presumably contingent on baseline arousal levels of the individual. 1. Albouy G., King B. R., Schmidt C., Desseilles M., Dang-Vu T., Balteau E., Phillips C., Degueldre C., Orban P., Benali H., Peigneux P., Luxen A., Karni A., Doyon J., Maquet P., Korman M. 2016 Cerebral Activity Associated with Transient Sleep-Facilitated Reduction in Motor Memory Vulnerability to Interference Scientific Reports 6:34948 2. Friedman J., Korman M. 2016 Offline optimization of the relative timing of movements in a sequence is blocked by behavioral retroactive interference Frontiers in Human Neuroscience, 10:623 3. Korman M., Herling Z., Levy I., Egbarieh N., Engel-Yeger B., Karni A. 2017 Background matters: minor vibratory sensory stimulation during motor skill acquisition selectively reduces off-line memory consolidation. Neurobiology of Learning and Memory 140:27-32

lecture

Thursday, December 27, 2018
13:30 - 14:45

Nella and Leon Benoziyo Building for Brain Research

Ca2+ stores in animal models of Alzheimer’s disease

Etay Aloni (PhD Thesis Defense)

lecture

Sunday, December 23, 2018
14:30

Arthur and Rochelle Belfer Building for Biomedical Research

ORGaNICs: A Canonical Neural Circuit Computation

Prof. David Heeger

lecture

Tuesday, December 18, 2018
12:30

Nella and Leon Benoziyo Building for Brain Research

Functional stability in a dynamic network – the role of inhibition

Prof. Yonatan Loewenstein

lecture

Thursday, December 6, 2018
12:30

Gerhard M.J. Schmidt Lecture Hall

Learning and sleep-dependent dendritic spine plasticity and maintenance

,Prof. Wenbiao Gan

lecture

Thursday, December 6, 2018
12:30

Gerhard M.J. Schmidt Lecture Hall

Learning and sleep-dependent dendritic spine plasticity and maintenance

Prof. Wenbiao Gan

lecture

Tuesday, November 27, 2018
12:30

Gerhard M.J. Schmidt Lecture Hall

Cellular function given parametric variation in the Hodgkin-Huxley model

Prof. Shimon Marom

lecture

Thursday, November 22, 2018
14:00 - 15:00

Gerhard M.J. Schmidt Lecture Hall

The Inspirational Brain: Human Non-Olfactory Cognition is Phase-Locked with Sniffing

Ofer Perl (PhD Thesis Defense)

lecture

Tuesday, November 20, 2018
12:30

Gerhard M.J. Schmidt Lecture Hall

Development of Memory Systems in the Human Brain

Prof. Noa Ofen

lecture

Thursday, November 15, 2018
12:30

Nella and Leon Benoziyo Building for Brain Research

Neurophysiology of States of Consciousness: From Mechanistic Principles to Novel Diagnostic and Therapeutic Tools

,Prof. Jacobo Diego Sitt

lecture

Tuesday, November 13, 2018
12:30

Gerhard M.J. Schmidt Lecture Hall

Perception and retinal integration of rod and cone signals in primate

Dr. William Grimes

lecture

Wednesday, October 31, 2018
12:30

Gerhard M.J. Schmidt Lecture Hall

Transmission of Memories Across Generations

Prof. Oded Rechavi

lecture

Sunday, October 28, 2018
11:00

Arthur and Rochelle Belfer Building for Biomedical Research

Convergence of hunger and thirst in the insular cortex

Dr. Yoav Livneh

lecture

Thursday, October 25, 2018
12:30

Nella and Leon Benoziyo Building for Brain Research

Hierarchical dynamics of visual inference

Prof. Jochen Braun

lecture

Wednesday, October 24, 2018
14:00 - 15:00

Nella and Leon Benoziyo Building for Brain Research

Emotional valence and implicit memory formation under anesthesia: Neural mechanisms in the amygdala and pre-frontal cortex

,Nir Samuel (PhD Thesis Defense)

Background: The aim of anaesthesia is to eliminate awareness and prevent memory of the various aversive stimuli of medical procedures. Yet in a portion of cases, patients can recall events that occurred during surgery resulting in risks of adverse psychological outcomes. Fear conditioning offers a robust behavioral model to study this phenomenon, while the abundant evidence implicating the amygdala-medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC) circuit in acquisition, consolidation and retrieval of these memories offers a natural hypothesis for the neural mechanisms. Objective: We aimed to study the effect of anaesthesia on stimulus valence, acquisition and memory and to identify the correlates in the mPFC-amygdala circuit using a primate model and clinically relevant doses of anesthesia. Materials and methods: Two non-human primates acquired aversive memories by tone-odor classical conditioning under anesthesia with different doses of ketamine, a non-competitive antagonist of NMDA and midazolam, a GABA agonist. Both agents are in wide clinical use. We simultaneously recorded single neurons in the BLA and mPFC. Analyses focused on behavioral and neural evidence suggesting maintained valence, acquisition and retention of memory. Results: Seventy-six full sessions from two non-human primates entered analysis. We recorded 172 amygdala and 189 dACC neurons respectively. We found evidence of successful aversive conditioning under both anesthetics and in all doses. Under anesthesia, we found behavioral evidence of retention in 46% of sessions matched by a complementary response of 16.2% and 18.7% of amygdala and mPFC neurons respectively. An increased and escalating amygdala and mPFC response during acquisition predicted later retention and correlated the behavioral result. The behavioral and neural representation of aversive valence was sufficient to drive learning and affected conditioning outcome. Conclusion: Our results suggest that under anesthesia, the perception of stimuli and implicit aversive memory formation may be maintained. We show patterns in the amygdala-mPFC circuit that precede and predict this phenomenon and that may serve future monitoring strategies of anesthetized patients. The use of a primate model and therapeutic doses of common anesthetics affecting both GABA and NMDA transmission improves the possible translation of our findings.

lecture

Wednesday, October 24, 2018
14:00 - 15:00

Nella and Leon Benoziyo Building for Brain Research

Emotional valence and implicit memory formation under anesthesia: Neural mechanisms in the amygdala and pre-frontal cortex

Nir Samuel (PhD Thesis Defense)

Background: The aim of anaesthesia is to eliminate awareness and prevent memory of the various aversive stimuli of medical procedures. Yet in a portion of cases, patients can recall events that occurred during surgery resulting in risks of adverse psychological outcomes. Fear conditioning offers a robust behavioral model to study this phenomenon, while the abundant evidence implicating the amygdala-medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC) circuit in acquisition, consolidation and retrieval of these memories offers a natural hypothesis for the neural mechanisms. Objective: We aimed to study the effect of anaesthesia on stimulus valence, acquisition and memory and to identify the correlates in the mPFC-amygdala circuit using a primate model and clinically relevant doses of anesthesia. Materials and methods: Two non-human primates acquired aversive memories by tone-odor classical conditioning under anesthesia with different doses of ketamine, a non-competitive antagonist of NMDA and midazolam, a GABA agonist. Both agents are in wide clinical use. We simultaneously recorded single neurons in the BLA and mPFC. Analyses focused on behavioral and neural evidence suggesting maintained valence, acquisition and retention of memory. Results: Seventy-six full sessions from two non-human primates entered analysis. We recorded 172 amygdala and 189 dACC neurons respectively. We found evidence of successful aversive conditioning under both anesthetics and in all doses. Under anesthesia, we found behavioral evidence of retention in 46% of sessions matched by a complementary response of 16.2% and 18.7% of amygdala and mPFC neurons respectively. An increased and escalating amygdala and mPFC response during acquisition predicted later retention and correlated the behavioral result. The behavioral and neural representation of aversive valence was sufficient to drive learning and affected conditioning outcome. Conclusion: Our results suggest that under anesthesia, the perception of stimuli and implicit aversive memory formation may be maintained. We show patterns in the amygdala-mPFC circuit that precede and predict this phenomenon and that may serve future monitoring strategies of anesthetized patients. The use of a primate model and therapeutic doses of common anesthetics affecting both GABA and NMDA transmission improves the possible translation of our findings.

lecture

Tuesday, October 23, 2018
12:30

Gerhard M.J. Schmidt Lecture Hall

Synapsins regulate alpha-synuclein function

Dr. Daniel Gitler

lecture

Thursday, October 18, 2018
12:30

Gerhard M.J. Schmidt Lecture Hall

Information processing at hippocampal synapses

,Prof. J. Simon Wiegert

lecture

Sunday, October 14, 2018
10:30

Gerhard M.J. Schmidt Lecture Hall

Serotonin and Autism Therapeutics: Insights from Human Mutations and Mouse Models

Dr. Randy Blakely

lecture

Sunday, October 7, 2018
12:30 - 13:30

Nella and Leon Benoziyo Building for Brain Research

"What is it like to be a bat?" - A pathway to the answer from the Integrated Information Theory

Dr. Naotsugu Tsuchiya

What does it feel like to be a bat? Is conscious experience of echolocation closer to that of vision or audition? Or, echolocation is non-conscious processing and it doesn't feel anything? This famous question of bats' experience, posed by a philosopher Thomas Nagel in 1974, clarifies the difficult nature of the mind-body problem. Why a particular sense, such as vision, has to feel like vision, but not like audition, is puzzling. This is especially so given that any conscious experience is supported by neuronal activity. Activity of a single neuron appears fairly uniform across modalities, and even similar to those for non-conscious processing. Without any explanation on why a particular sense has to feel as the way it does, researchers even cannot approach the question of the bats' experience. Is there any theory that gives us a hope for such explanation? Currently, probably none, except for one. Integrated Information Theory (IIT), proposed by Tononi in 2004 has a potential to offer a plausible explanation. IIT essentially claims that any system that is composed of causally interacting mechanisms can have conscious experience. And precisely how the system feels like is determined by the way the mechanisms influence each other in a holistic way. In this talk, I will give a brief explanation of the essence of IIT and provide initial empirical partial tests of the theory, proposing a potential scientific pathway to approach bats' conscious experience. If IIT, or its improved or related versions, is validated enough, it will gain credibility to accept its prediction on rough nature of bats' experience. If we can gain a sophisticated insight as to whether bats' experience is closer to vision or audition, it is already a tremendously big step in consciousness science, which is just a first yet critical one, possibly a similar level of the breakthrough in cosmology in precisely estimating the age of the universe. References: 0) talk slide: https://www.slideshare.net/NaoNaotsuguTsuchiya/17-june-20-empirical-test-of-iit-dresden 1) Andrew M. Haun, Masafumi Oizumi, Christopher K. Kovach, Hiroto Kawasaki, Hiroyuki Oya, Matthew A. Howard, Ralph Adolphs, Naotsugu Tsuchiya, (2017, accepted) “Conscious perception as integrated information patterns in human electrocorticography” eNeuro link 2) Tsuchiya “"What is it like to be a bat?" - a pathway to the answer from the Integrated Information Theory ” Philosophy Compass (2017) link 3) Oizumi M, Tsuchiya N, Amari S, “Unified framework for quantifying causality and integrated information in a dynamical system” (2016) PNAS link

lecture

Thursday, August 30, 2018
12:30

Gerhard M.J. Schmidt Lecture Hall

Dynamics of social representations in the prefrontal cortex and their alterations in mouse models of autism

Dana Rubi Levy (PhD Thesis Defense)

lecture

Wednesday, August 29, 2018
10:30

Gerhard M.J. Schmidt Lecture Hall

Learning probabilistic representations in randomly connected neural circuits

Ori Maoz (PhD Thesis Defense)

lecture

Monday, August 13, 2018
10:00 - 11:15

Gerhard M.J. Schmidt Lecture Hall

Catecholamines in the hippocampal formation

Sima Verbitsky (PhD Thesis Defense)

Monoaminergic (noradrenergic, dopaminergic and serotonergic) modulation of hippocampal activity is assumed to play a major role in neuronal plasticity, learning and memory. Understanding the locus of action of these neuromodulators at the cellular level will expand our knowledge of their nature and allow us to identify issues related to their dysfunction. In the present work I study the effects of norepinephrine (NE) and dopamine (DA) on spontaneous and evoked activity in patch-clamped neurons of hippocampal slices. Both DA and NE induced a significant decrease in the amplitude of the evoked PSCs recorded from CA1 pyramidal neurons in response to stimulation of the Schaffer collaterals, accompanied by a small decrease in the cell input resistance, and a small hyperpolarization. While decreasing the evoked PSCs, NE promoted an overall increase in spontaneous synaptic activity. Pharmacological assessment of these results indicated an α1 adrenergic receptor involvement in both the decrease of the amplitude of evoked PSCs as well as the increase in spontaneous activity. Surprisingly, the effect of NE on evoked PSCs was partially antagonized by D1 dopaminergic receptor antagonist SCH23390, which suggests that NE activates dopamine receptors. The effect of DA on evoked PSCs was blocked by α1 adrenergic receptor antagonist prazosin, which suggests that DA, in turn, is activating adrenergic receptors. Noradrenergic system is highly affected by stress; in particular, the differences between NE effects in dorsal and ventral hippocampus (DH and VH, respectively) have been shown to change in stressed animals. In this work I used two types of stress protocols – Prenatal Stress (PS) and Acute Stress (AS) – to study the effect of stress on monoamine responses in slices of DH and VH. In non-stressed rats, NE effect on the evoked PSCs is larger in DH than in VH. PS and AS rats increased NE effect in VH, thus abolishing the difference between DH and VH. Pharmacological data suggests that these differences result from differential efficiencies of α1 and D1 receptors between DH and VH of both control and PS rats. Acute stress reversed the difference between PS and control rats; in the AS slices the PSC reduction was significantly different between DH and VH of PS rats, and not in control rats. I conclude that stress increases the NE modulation in VH, but not in DH, thus increasing the role of emotional processing associated with the VH.

lecture

Sunday, August 12, 2018
15:00

Nella and Leon Benoziyo Building for Brain Research

Regulation of the blood-cerebrospinal fluid barrier as a gateway for leukocyte trafficking in physiology and pathology

Alexander Kertser (PhD Thesis Defense)

lecture

Wednesday, August 1, 2018
14:00

Nella and Leon Benoziyo Building for Brain Research

The role of TrpC2 channel in mediating social behavior of male mice within a group

Yefim Pen (PhD Thesis Defense)

lecture

Thursday, July 26, 2018
11:00

Gerhard M.J. Schmidt Lecture Hall

Neural circuits for skilled forelimb movement

Prof. Eiman Azim

lecture

Tuesday, July 17, 2018
12:30

Gerhard M.J. Schmidt Lecture Hall

Human physiological and behavioral responses to olfactory stimuli in health and disease

Liron Rozenkrantz (PhD Thesis Defense)

In my PhD I led three projects probing human behavioral and physiological responses to olfactory stimuli in health and disease. In these projects I used every-day olfactory occurrences in order to infer on biological underpinnings of human behavior. In my main project I tested olfactory processing in autism, using the sniff response, a ten-minute non-verbal measure of respiratory response to odors. I found this objective measure to be profoundly altered in children with autism, and furthermore, to be highly correlated with autism severity. Using computational methods, I demonstrated 81% correct ASD classification based on differences in olfactory processing alone. These results provide proof-of-concept for a potential biomarker for autism (Rozenkrantz et al, Curr Bio, 2015). In a second and soon-to-be-submitted project, I investigated olfactory social communication in recurrent pregnancy loss (RPL), resting on a phenomenon in rodents in which females miscarry following exposure to bodily odors of non-stud males. I found that women with RPL display heightened social olfactory abilities, which were significantly correlated with number of miscarriages. Additionally, women with RPL showed significantly altered hormonal, physiological and neural responses to body odors of unfamiliar men. This project provides novel evidence for altered olfactory processing in human recurrent miscarriages. The third project is also my first foothold in placebo effect research, which I will pursue in my postdoc. Taking advantage of the non-invasive nature of olfactory stimuli, I used an odor as the placebo carrier, and tested two groups of subjects for different creativity tests. Both groups smelled the odor, but only the placebo group was told that it increases creativity (placebo manipulation). I found that following this simple manipulation, the placebo group displayed significantly enhanced creativity (Rozenkrantz et al., PLoS one, 2017). Taken together, these projects convey my deep interest in the interplay between human behavior and physiology.

lecture

Tuesday, July 3, 2018
12:30

Gerhard M.J. Schmidt Lecture Hall

Sensory processing across behavioral and neuromodulatory states

Dr. Yuval Nir

"Sensory disconnection" – conditions when the same sensory stimulus does not reliably affect behavior or subjective experience - is a defining feature of sleep, and similar processes may occur during light anesthesia or during cognitive lapses in wakefulness. What are the changes in brain activity that mediate sensory disconnection? In a series of studies in humans and rodents, we investigate how "disconnected" states affect sensory processing. The first set of studies reveals differences in neuronal responses to identical sensory stimuli across states. We find that in humans, cognitive lapses after sleep deprivation involve attenuated and delayed single-neuron responses in MTL co-occurring with local slow/theta waves. In the auditory domain, we show in both rodents and humans that responses in sleep and light anesthesia are preserved up to A1, challenging the classic "thalamic gating" notion, but robust attenuation occurs later in high-level cortical regions. In addition, sleep affects more strongly responses that require integration over long time intervals, and responses to high-frequency content. The second set of studies investigates the underlying mechanisms, testing the potential role of locus coeruleus-noradrenaline (LC-NE) neuromodulation. In rats, we test how NE signaling affects the probability to wake up from sleep in response to sounds. We establish a new approach for selective in-vivo LC optogenetics by showing effects on spiking activity, evoked sleep-wake transitions, and pupil dilation. Combined LC and auditory stimulation synergistically increases the probability of awakenings beyond independent effects of sound and laser alone, supporting a role for LC-NE activity in mediating sensory responses. We also tested the effects of NE levels on sensory perception and sensory-evoked activity (EEG, fMRI) in awake humans. Pharmacologically manipulating NE levels in double-blind placebo-controlled experiments, we found that NE modulates sensitivity and accuracy of visual perception without significant effects on decision bias (criterion). In addition, NE increased the fidelity of late EEG visual responses, and selectively modulated BOLD fMRI responses in high-order visual cortex, suggesting that NE plays an enabling causal role in visual awareness by affecting late visual processing.

lecture

Tuesday, June 26, 2018
12:30

Gerhard M.J. Schmidt Lecture Hall

Neural networks mapping actions to their sensory consequences

Prof. Roy Mukamel

lecture

Thursday, June 21, 2018
12:30 - 13:30

What the nose tells the brain

Prof. Dmitry Rinberg

lecture

Tuesday, June 19, 2018
12:30 - 13:30

Gerhard M.J. Schmidt Lecture Hall

Mechanisms of sparse coding in the dentate gyrus

Prof. Dr. Heinz Beck

lecture

Tuesday, June 12, 2018
12:30

Gerhard M.J. Schmidt Lecture Hall

Pluripotent models for neurodegenerative diseases

Prof. Eran Meshorer

lecture

Thursday, May 31, 2018
12:00 - 13:00

Nella and Leon Benoziyo Building for Brain Research

Enhanced capacity and dynamic gating in a model of context-dependent associative memory

Bill Podlaski

lecture

Tuesday, May 29, 2018
12:30 - 13:30

Gerhard M.J. Schmidt Lecture Hall

Synaptic and extrasynaptic neuron-glia interactions

Prof. Alexey Semyanov

Brain is often viewed as large neuronal connectome where the information is encoded in the patterns of action potentials and stored in the changes of synaptic strength or appearance of new wiring routes. However, recent studies have demonstrated that astrocytes also possess complex patterns of calcium signals influenced by neuronal activity. Astrocytic calcium signals regulate various functions of these cells including release of gliotransmitters and morphological changes in the astrocytic processes (Tanaka et al., 2013). It has been tempting to suggest that information in astrocytes is encoded in the frequency of calcium events, similar to patters of neuronal action potentials. Synaptically released neurotransmitters thought to trigger new calcium events in perisynaptic astrocytic processes (PAPs) though activation of metabotropic glutamate receptors (mGluRs). In contrast, our recent findings suggest that PAPs are devoid of calcium stores that are required for mGluR-mediated calcium signaling (Patrushev et al., 2013). This makes unlikely any significant role of mGluRs in triggering calcium events in PAPs. Instead, we show that activation of ‘extrasynaptic’ astrocytic mGluRs increases proportion of spatially extended calcium events in the power-law based distribution of calcium event sizes (Wu et al., 2014). This effect takes place without any significant increase in the frequency of calcium events. These findings suggest that astrocytic response to surrounding neuronal activity is rather encoded in spatial characteristics of their calcium events and fundamentally different from temporal information coding in neurons (e.g. coincidence detection, action potentials sequences etc). Nevertheless, we cannot exclude local ionic changes in PAPs in response to synaptic activity. For example, potassium ions accumulate in the synaptic cleft of glutamatergic synapses during repetitive activity. We have demonstrated that the bulk of these ions is contributed by potassium efflux through postsynaptic NMDA receptors (Shih et al., 2013). Potassium mediated depolarization of presynaptic terminal increases glutamate release probability. Now we have found that accumulation of intracleft potassium during repetitive synaptic activity could also inhibit astrocytic glutamate uptake by depolarizing PAPs. This extends glutamate dwell-time in the synaptic cleft and boosts glutamate spillover effects.

lecture

Monday, May 28, 2018
12:30

Gerhard M.J. Schmidt Lecture Hall

From dragons’ sleep to sliders’ sight: reexamination of reptilian model systems

Dr. Mark Shein-Idelson

lecture

Tuesday, May 15, 2018
12:30

Gerhard M.J. Schmidt Lecture Hall

Synaptic dynamics in mouse visual cortex

Dr. Tara Keck

lecture

Sunday, May 13, 2018
10:00

Nella and Leon Benoziyo Building for Brain Research

In vivo identification of brain structures functionally involved in spatial learning and strategy switch

Dr. Suellen DeAlmeida-Correa

Spatial learning is a complex behavior which includes, among others, encoding of space, sensory and motivational processes, arousal and locomotor performance. Today, our view on spatial navigation is largely hippocampus-centrist. Less is known about the involvement of brain structures up- and downstream, or out of this circuit. Here, we provide the fist in vivo assessment of the neural matrix underlying spatial learning, using functional manganese-enhanced MRI (MEMRI) and voxel-wise whole brain analysis. Mice underwent place-learning (PL) vs. response-learning (RL) in the water cross maze (WCM) and its readout was correlated to the Mn2+ contrasts. Thus, we identified structures involved in spatial learning largely overlooked in the past, due to methods focused on region of interest (ROI) analyses. Add-on experiments pointed to bias in Mn2+ accumulati! on towards projection terminals, suggesting that our mapping was mostly formed by projection sites of the originally activated structures. This is corroborated by in-depth analysis of MEMRI data after WCM learning showing mostly downstream targets of the hippocampus. These differ between fornical afferences from vCA1 and direct innervation from dCA1/iCA1 (for PL), and structures along the longitudinal association bundle originating in vCA1 (for RL). To elucidate the pattern of Mn2+ accumulation seen on the scans we performed c-fos expression analyses following learning in the WCM. This helped us identify the structures initially activated during spatial learning and its underlying connectivity to establish the matrix. Finally, to test the causal involvement of these structures we inhibited them (through DREADDs) while mice performed in the WCM task. We also focused on the causal involvement of the mPFC-HPC circuit on strategy switch during WCM learning. We believe that this study might shed light into new brain structures involved in spatial learning and strategy switch and complement the current knowledge on these circuits’ connectivity. Moreover, we elucidated some functional mechanisms of MEMRI, clarifying the interpretation of data obtained with this method and its possible future applications.

lecture

Tuesday, May 8, 2018
12:30

Gerhard M.J. Schmidt Lecture Hall

Advanced Optical Materials in the Mirrored Eyes of Animals

Dr. Benjamin Palmer

lecture

Tuesday, April 17, 2018
12:30

Gerhard M.J. Schmidt Lecture Hall

Collective Sensing and Decision-Making in Animal Groups: From Fish Schools to Primate Societies

Prof. Iain D. Couzin

lecture

Sunday, April 15, 2018
12:30

Gerhard M.J. Schmidt Lecture Hall

Is mesoscopic resolution for BOLD fMRI enough? MR Imaging of electrical properties as a more direct probe of neuronal activation

Dr. Rita Schmidt

lecture

Tuesday, April 10, 2018
12:30

Gerhard M.J. Schmidt Lecture Hall

Emergence of behaviorally relevant motifs in the human cortex

Dr. Tomer Livne

lecture

Monday, April 9, 2018
12:45

Nella and Leon Benoziyo Building for Brain Research

Neural circuits for defensive responses

Dr. Philip Tovote

lecture

Tuesday, March 27, 2018
12:30

Gerhard M.J. Schmidt Lecture Hall

Visualizing Synapse Formation and Elimination in vivo

Prof. Elly Nedivi

conference

Monday, March 26, 2018
08:00

Dolfi and Lola Ebner Auditorium

Prof. Itzchak Steinberg Memorial Symposium

lecture

Tuesday, March 20, 2018
12:30

Gerhard M.J. Schmidt Lecture Hall

Principles of neural coding for efficient navigation in gradients

Dr. Alon Zaslaver

lecture

Sunday, March 18, 2018
12:45

Gerhard M.J. Schmidt Lecture Hall

The robot vibrissal system: Understanding mammalian sensorimotor co-ordination through biomimetics

Prof. Tony Prescott

lecture

Thursday, March 8, 2018
11:30

Gerhard M.J. Schmidt Lecture Hall

From synaptic plasticity to primate cognition

Prof. Mu-ming Poo

lecture

Tuesday, March 6, 2018
12:30

Arthur and Rochelle Belfer Building for Biomedical Research

“Imaging the Future: How Neuroimaging Might Better People’s Lives”

Prof. John Gabrieli

lecture

Tuesday, February 27, 2018
12:30

Gerhard M.J. Schmidt Lecture Hall

Role of pituicytes, the resident astroglia of the neurohypophysis in neuro-vascular development

Prof. Gil Levkowitz

lecture

Tuesday, February 20, 2018
12:30

Gerhard M.J. Schmidt Lecture Hall

In silico cortical microcircuit: Emergent global topology and “practical use”

Idan Segev

lecture

Tuesday, February 13, 2018
12:30

Gerhard M.J. Schmidt Lecture Hall

Building cortical networks: from molecules to function

Prof. Beatriz Rico

lecture

Tuesday, February 6, 2018
12:30

Gerhard M.J. Schmidt Lecture Hall

Brain-immune interactions: from brain to gut

Dr. Asya Rolls

lecture

Monday, February 5, 2018
12:45

Gerhard M.J. Schmidt Lecture Hall

Neuroimaging in human drug addiction: an eye towards intervention development

Prof. Rita Z. Goldstein, PhD

Drug addiction is a chronically relapsing disorder characterized by compulsive drug use despite catastrophic personal consequences (e.g., loss of family, job) and even when the substance is no longer perceived as pleasurable. In this talk, I will present results of human neuroimaging studies, utilizing a multimodal approach (neuropsychology, functional magnetic resonance imaging, event-related potentials recordings), to explore the neurobiology underlying the core psychological impairments in drug addiction (impulsivity, drive/motivation, insight/awareness) as associated with its clinical symptomatology (intoxication, craving, bingeing, withdrawal). The focus of this talk is on understanding the role of the dopaminergic mesocorticolimbic circuit, and especially the prefrontal cortex, in higher-order executive dysfunction (e.g., disadvantageous decision-making such as trading a car for a couple of cocaine hits) in drug addicted individuals. The theoretical model that guides the presented research is called iRISA (Impaired Response Inhibition and Salience Attribution), postulating that abnormalities in the orbitofrontal cortex and anterior cingulate cortex, as related to dopaminergic dysfunction, contribute to the core clinical symptoms in drug addiction. Specifically, our multi-modality program of research is guided by the underlying working hypothesis that drug addicted individuals disproportionately attribute reward value to their drug of choice at the expense of other potentially but no-longer-rewarding stimuli, with a concomitant decrease in the ability to inhibit maladaptive drug use. In this talk I will also explore whether treatment (as usual) and 6-month abstinence enhance recovery in these brain-behavior compromises in treatment seeking cocaine addicted individuals. Promising neuroimaging studies, which combine pharmacological (i.e., oral methylphenidate, or RitalinTM) and salient cognitive tasks or functional connectivity during resting-state, will be discussed as examples for using neuroimaging in the empirical guidance for the development of effective neurorehabilitation strategies (including cognitive training) in drug addiction.

lecture

Sunday, January 28, 2018
14:30

Gerhard M.J. Schmidt Lecture Hall

Design and characterization of light-gated proteins for the investigation of medial prefrontal cortex function

Mathias Mahn (PhD Defense Thesis)

lecture

Thursday, January 25, 2018
14:00

Gerhard M.J. Schmidt Lecture Hall

Optogenetic fMRI and the Investigation of Global Brain Circuit Mechanisms

Jin Hyung Lee, PhD

Understanding the functional communication across brain has been a long sought-after goal of neuroscientists. However, due to the widespread and highly interconnected nature of brain circuits, the dynamic relationship between neuronal network elements remains elusive. With the development of optogenetic functional magnetic resonance imaging (ofMRI), it is now possible to observe whole-brain level network activity that results from modulating with millisecond- timescale resolution the activity of genetically, spatially, and topologically defined cell populations. ofMRI uniquely enables mapping global patterns of brain activity that result from the selective and precise control of neuronal populations. Advances in the molecular toolbox of optogenetics, as well as improvements in imaging technology, will bring ofMRI closer to its full potential. In particular, the integration of ultra-fast data acquisition, high SNR, and combinatorial optogenetics will enable powerful systems that can modulate and visualize brain activity in real-time. ofMRI is anticipated to play an important role in the dissection and control of network-level brain circuit function and dysfunction. In this talk, the ofMRI technology will be introduced with advanced approaches to bring it to its full potential, ending with examples of dissecting whole brain circuits associated with neurological diseases utilizing ofMRI. Short Bio: Dr. Lee received her Bachelor’s degree from Seoul National University and Masters and Doctoral degree from Stanford University, all in Electrical Engineering. She is a recipient of the 2008 NIH/NIBIB K99/R00 Pathway to Independence Award, 2010 NIH Director’s New Innovator Award, 2010 Okawa Foundation Research Grant Award, 2011 NSF CAREER Award, 2012 Alfred P. Sloan Research Fellowship, 2012 Epilepsy Therapy Project award, 2013 Alzheimer’s Association New Investigator Award, 2014 IEEE EMBS BRAIN young investigator award, and the 2017 NIH/NIMH BRAIN grant award. As an Electrical Engineer by training with Neuroscience research interest, her goal is to analyze, debug, and engineer the brain circuit through innovative technology. 1. Hyun Joo Lee†, Andrew Weitz†, David Bernal-Casas, Ben A. Duffy, Mankin Choy, Alexxai Kravitz, Anatol Kreitzer, Jin Hyung Lee*, Activation of direct and indirect pathway medium spiny neurons drives distinct brain-wide responses, Neuron, 2016;91(2):412-424. 2. Jia Liu†, Ben A. Duffy†, David Bernal-Casas, Zhongnan Fang, Jin Hyung Lee*, Comparison of fMRI analysis methods for heterogeneous BOLD responses in block design studies, Neuroimage, 2017;147:390-408. 3. David Bernal-Casas, Hyun Joo Lee, Andrew Weitz, Jin Hyung Lee*, Studying brain circuit function with dynamic causal modeling for optogenetic fMRI, Neuron, 2017;93:522-532.

lecture

Tuesday, January 23, 2018
12:30

Gerhard M.J. Schmidt Lecture Hall

Pay attention and learn from experience!: The transcriptional representation of experience and the role of the claustrum in attention

Dr. Ami Citri

conference

Tuesday, January 16, 2018
08:30 - 17:30

The David Lopatie Conference Centre

Windows to the Brain: Advances in Optical Imaging for Understanding Neural Circuit Function

lecture

Sunday, January 14, 2018
12:30

Nella and Leon Benoziyo Building for Brain Research

Biomarker research in major depression

M.D.,Ph.D,Prof. Hiroshi Kunugi

lecture

Tuesday, January 9, 2018
12:30

Gerhard M.J. Schmidt Lecture Hall

Social place cells in the bat hippocampus

Dr. David B. Omer

lecture

Tuesday, January 2, 2018
12:30

Gerhard M.J. Schmidt Lecture Hall

Various approaches to online inference - human behavior and theoretical models

Dr. Rava Azeredo da Silveira

lecture

Wednesday, December 27, 2017
09:00

Gerhard M.J. Schmidt Lecture Hall

Neural activity imaging reveals computational principles in the neuromodulatory system

Dr. Takashi Kawashima

lecture

Wednesday, December 27, 2017
10:30

Gerhard M.J. Schmidt Lecture Hall

Serotonin's roles in learning and decision-making

Dr. Eran Lottem

lecture

Tuesday, December 26, 2017
13:00

Gerhard M.J. Schmidt Lecture Hall

Hippocampal sensitivity to event boundaries in the encoding of narrative episodes

Dr. Aya Ben-Yakov

conference

Sunday, December 24, 2017
08:30 - 13:30

The David Lopatie Conference Centre

From perception to action: imaging human brain function

lecture

Tuesday, November 7, 2017
12:30

Gerhard M.J. Schmidt Lecture Hall

Challenging the sensory division of labor in the brain. Lessons from the deafs’ sense of rhythm and tactile braille reading in the sighted.

Dr. Marcin Szwed

lecture

Tuesday, October 31, 2017
12:30

Gerhard M.J. Schmidt Lecture Hall

Revealing the neural correlates of behavior without behavioral measurements

Dr. Alon Rubin

lecture

Monday, October 16, 2017
14:30

Nella and Leon Benoziyo Building for Brain Research

Using whiskers to gain insights into animal behaviour and motor control

Dr. Robyn A. Grant

lecture

Sunday, September 17, 2017
10:30

Nella and Leon Benoziyo Building for Brain Research

Applying epigenetics to the study of trauma in the first and second generation

Prof. Rachel Yehuda

lecture

Tuesday, September 5, 2017
12:30

Nella and Leon Benoziyo Building for Brain Research

A phylogenetic approach to decision making

Prof. Thomas Boraud, MD PhD

lecture

Monday, September 4, 2017
12:30

Gerhard M.J. Schmidt Lecture Hall

Speech processing in auditory cortex with and without oscillations

Prof. Anne-Lise Giraud

lecture

Thursday, August 17, 2017
12:30

Nella and Leon Benoziyo Building for Brain Research

Functional dissection of decision-related activity in the primate dorsal stream

Dr. Leor Katz

lecture

Tuesday, July 11, 2017
12:30

Nella and Leon Benoziyo Building for Brain Research

Simple integration of asymmetric inputs computes directional selectivity in Drosophila

Eyal Gruntman

lecture

Monday, July 3, 2017
12:30

Gerhard M.J. Schmidt Lecture Hall

Neural Representations of Natural Self Motion: Implications for Perception & Action

Prof. Kathleen Cullen

The vestibular system detects self-motion and in turn generates reflexes that are crucial for our daily activities, such as stabilizing the visual axis (gaze) and maintaining head and body posture. In addition, the vestibular system provides us with our subjective sense of movement and orientation in space. The loss vestibular function due to aging, injury, or disease produces dizziness, postural imbalance, and an increased risk of falls – all symptoms that profoundly impair quality of life. In this talk, I will describe how the brain processes vestibular information in natural conditions. Notably, our work has established how early stages of processing encode vestibular stimuli and integrate them with extra-vestibular cues – for example proprioceptive and premotor information to ensure accurate perception and behaviour. Our experiments have revealed that while vestibular afferents respond identically to externally-generated and actively-generated self-motion, this is not the case at first central stage of sensory processing. Neurons mediating the vestibulo-spinal reflexes, as well as ascending thalamocortical pathways, are robustly activated during externally-generated motion, however their sensory response are cancelled during actively-generated movements. Our work has further revealed that this cancellation of actively-generated vestibular input occurs only in conditions where the actual sensory signal matches the brain’s internal estimate of the expected sensory consequences of active movement. Moreover, when unexpected vestibular inputs becomes persistent during voluntary motion, a cerebellar-based cancellation mechanism is rapidly updated to re-enable the vital distinction between self-generated and externally-applied stimulation to ensure the maintenance of posture and stable perception. In contrast, vestibular pathways mediating the vestibulo-ocular reflex, employ a different strategy. In this pathway, head velocity is robustly encoded whenever the goal is to stabilize gaze, but when the goal is to voluntarily redirect gaze an efferent copy of the gaze command suppresses the efficacy of this reflex pathway. Taken together, these findings have important implications for understanding the neural basis of perception and action during self-motion.

lecture

Tuesday, June 20, 2017
12:30

Gerhard M.J. Schmidt Lecture Hall

Astrocytes generate de-novo neuronal potentiation and memory enhancement

Dr. Inbal Goshen

lecture

Tuesday, June 13, 2017
12:30

Gerhard M.J. Schmidt Lecture Hall

Clustering of dendritic activity during decision making

Dr. Boaz Mohar

lecture

Thursday, June 8, 2017
12:30

Gerhard M.J. Schmidt Lecture Hall

Behavioral and neural bases of social decision-making in non-human primates

Prof. Jean-Rene Duhamel

lecture

Tuesday, June 6, 2017
12:30

Gerhard M.J. Schmidt Lecture Hall

Presynaptic dysfunction in Fragile X syndrome

Prof. Vitaly Klyachko

lecture

Wednesday, May 24, 2017
16:00

Gerhard M.J. Schmidt Lecture Hall

Orbitofrontal-hippocampal interactions in decision making

Prof. Yael Niv

lecture

Tuesday, May 16, 2017
12:30

Gerhard M.J. Schmidt Lecture Hall

Image recurrence across saccades is encoded in the retina

Dr. Vidhyasankar Krishnamoorthy

lecture

Tuesday, May 9, 2017
12:30

Gerhard M.J. Schmidt Lecture Hall

Genetic TRAPing of Cortical Plasticity

Prof. Adi Mizrahi

lecture

Monday, May 8, 2017
10:00

Nella and Leon Benoziyo Building for Brain Research

A Grid in the Brain

Dr. Saikat Ray

lecture

Tuesday, April 25, 2017
14:00

Nella and Leon Benoziyo Building for Brain Research

Bonsai trees in your head: The powerful influence of reflexive processes on goal-directed decision making

Prof. Jonathan Roiser

lecture

Monday, April 3, 2017
15:00

Gerhard M.J. Schmidt Lecture Hall

Circular inference and excitatory/inhibitory balance: application to bistable perception and schizophrenia

lecture

Sunday, April 2, 2017
14:30

Gerhard M.J. Schmidt Lecture Hall

Spike based coding and computation

lecture

Tuesday, March 28, 2017
12:30

Gerhard M.J. Schmidt Lecture Hall

Could life-long memory be encoded in the pattern of holes in the Perineuronal net?

Dr. Varda Lev-Ram

Abstract: The PNN is a specialized form of extracellular matrix, initially deposited around selected neurons during critical periods of development in specific parts of the brain, interrupted by holes where synapses occur. We postulate that the PNN comprises a longer-lived structural template and that new memories are created by cutting new holes in the PNN or by expanding existing holes to enable formation of new synapses or to strengthen existing ones. A basic premise of this hypothesis is that the PNN, should undergo very low metabolic renewal from the first age at which memories are retained until senescence, whereas the active constituents of synapses turn over much more frequently and would therefore be poorer substrates for permanent information storage, unless they are equipped with incredibly accurate copying mechanisms (R.Y.Tsien PNAS 2013). Experimental tests of the hypothesis: 1.PNN longevity; using 15N Spirulina diet for Stable Isotope Labeling in Mammals (SILAM) we compare the lifetimes of PNN proteins vs. synaptic components in Enriched Environment (EE) vs. Conventional Cages (CC), ending the pulse-chase by changing to 14N diet at P45. Analysis by Multidimensional Protein Identification Technology (MudPIT) of four different brain areas indicate: a. Low turnover rate for PNN proteins while synaptic proteins were at the noise level of 15N /14N ratio. b. Higher turnover of PNN proteins in EE vs. CC cages c.Variability in the retention of 15N in PNN proteins between brain areas. 2.Localization of the long-lasting proteins; Imaging of 15N /14N ratio using Nanoscale secondary ion mass spectrometry (nanoSIMS) localized and verified the MudPit finding that PNN turnover is very slow. 3. Spatial occupation of the PNN holes; 2 dimension electron microscopy (EM) and 3D volumes of Serial Block Face Scanning EM reveal that neurons engulfed in PNN have more than 95% of their plasma membrane surface occupied by PNN or synapses. 4. Inhibition of PNN holes modulation during strong memories acquisition; we examined the role and timing of matrix metalloproteinases (MMP) activity in memory consolidation using pharmacological inhibitors in a fear-conditioning paradigm. Our results demonstrate that MMP inhibition during fear induction: a. Does not affect acquisition b. Significantly impairs long-term memory (30 days) c. Is dose dependent d. That memory impairment increases with time. So far the hypothesis is supported by the results of the above tests.

lecture

Thursday, March 23, 2017
14:30

Nella and Leon Benoziyo Building for Brain Research

Local motion signals: statistics, responses and generative models

Dr. Eyal Nitzany

lecture

Tuesday, March 21, 2017
12:30

Gerhard M.J. Schmidt Lecture Hall

Chemical love – The molecular neuroetholgy of pheromonal communication

Prof. Yehuda Ben-Shahar

lecture

Thursday, March 16, 2017
12:30

Gerhard M.J. Schmidt Lecture Hall

Spatiotemporal patterning in motor cortex during movement initiation

Prof. Nicholas Hatsopoulos

lecture

Tuesday, March 14, 2017
12:30

Gerhard M.J. Schmidt Lecture Hall

Exploration of human creative search and diversity

Prof. Uri Alon

lecture

Sunday, March 12, 2017
11:00

Gerhard M.J. Schmidt Lecture Hall

Motor abundance, compensation and adaptability for upper limb movements after stroke

Prof. Mindy F. Levin

lecture

Thursday, March 9, 2017
12:30

Gerhard M.J. Schmidt Lecture Hall

Parametric control of actions and its feed-forward nature

Prof. Anatol G. Feldman

lecture

Tuesday, March 7, 2017
12:30

Gerhard M.J. Schmidt Lecture Hall

MIF as a therapeutic candidate for amyotrophic lateral sclerosis

Prof. Adrian Israelson

lecture

Thursday, March 2, 2017
11:30

Gerhard M.J. Schmidt Lecture Hall

Neuronal ensembles: emergent motifs of cortical function?

Prof. Rafael Yuste

lecture

Thursday, March 2, 2017
12:45

Gerhard M.J. Schmidt Lecture Hall

Cortical spike multiplexing using gamma frequency latencies

Prof. Dana H. Ballard

lecture

Thursday, February 23, 2017
12:30

Gerhard M.J. Schmidt Lecture Hall

Oxytocin for autism? Insights from genetic mouse models

Prof. Olga Penagarikano

lecture

Tuesday, February 21, 2017
12:30

Gerhard M.J. Schmidt Lecture Hall

A Circuits First Approach to Mental Illness

Prof. Amit Etkin

lecture

Tuesday, February 14, 2017
12:30

Gerhard M.J. Schmidt Lecture Hall

The interplay between learning systems and their impact on long-term declarative memory

Dr. Avi Mendelsohn

lecture

Thursday, February 9, 2017
12:30

Gerhard M.J. Schmidt Lecture Hall

Nonlinear coherences among multiple time-series:Use of MRI data to identify brain temporal organization and directionality of information flow

Prof. Gadi Goelman

lecture

Tuesday, February 7, 2017
12:30

Gerhard M.J. Schmidt Lecture Hall

Why Sensory Deprivation and High Plasticity may lead to Hallucinations and Synaesthesia:A Computational Perspective

Dr. Oren Shriki

lecture

Thursday, February 2, 2017
12:30

Gerhard M.J. Schmidt Lecture Hall

Cellular substrates for network information processing in hippocampal CA1

Dr. Alessio Attardo

lecture

Sunday, January 29, 2017
11:00

Gerhard M.J. Schmidt Lecture Hall

From Single Nuclei RNA-Sequencing to Dynamics of Neuronal Regeneration

Dr. Naomi Habib

lecture

Thursday, January 26, 2017
12:00

Arthur and Rochelle Belfer Building for Biomedical Research

Reverse-engineering the sense of touch in mice

Prof. Samuel Andrew Hires

lecture

Tuesday, January 24, 2017
12:30

Gerhard M.J. Schmidt Lecture Hall

Reverse-engineering the sense of touch in mice

Prof. Samuel Andrew Hires

lecture

Tuesday, January 17, 2017
12:30

Gerhard M.J. Schmidt Lecture Hall

Towards a multi-scale quantification of the structure and function of the neurovascular interface

Dr. Pablo Blinder

All events

The Evolution of 7T (and Beyond) MRI in Basic Research and Clinical Practice

The role of neurons in the direction-selective retinal circuit in visual processing in the retina and in the visual thalamus

Designing Language Models to Think Like Humans

This decision, not just the average decision: Factors contributing to one single perceptual judgment

Reading Minds & Machines-AND-The Wisdom of a Crowd of Brains

Memory and Obliviscence:From Random to Structured Material

Elucidating convergence and divergence of neural mechanisms: from genes to behavior

Memory consolidation and generalization during sleep

Blood flow perturbations and its impact on brain structure and function: from microstrokes to heartbeats

Vasosdynamics of cortical arterioles and what it informs us about neuronal activity

The evolution and development of critical periods of cortical plasticity

Consciousness and the brain: comparing and testing neuroscientific theories of consciousness

Beyond Touch: Exploring Audible Aspects of Rodent Whisking

Information processing in spiking networks: Converging assemblies

Studying Ageing and Neurodegenerative Brain with Quantitative MRI

Hippocampal pathology and pathophysiology in the development of temporal lobe epileptogenesis

Dimensionality bottleneck uncovers simple action selection rules in hunting zebrafish

A brain-computer interface for studying long-term changes of hippocampal neural codes

Travelling waves or sequentially activated modules: mapping the granularity of cortical propagation

Mapping the world around us: A topology-preserved schema of space that supports goal-directed navigation

The role of the corpus callosum in interhemispheric communication

Mechanistic insights into ‘brainwashing’

One molecular- and one circuit-level insight into cognition from studying Drosophila

Non-canonical circuits for olfaction

Immunoception: Brain Representation and Control of Immunity

Olfactory information processing: timing, sequences, geometry and relevance

A paradigm shift in GPCR recruitment and activity: GPCR Voltage Dependence Controls Neuronal Plasticity and Behavior

Context-Dependent Dynamic Coordination of Head and Eye Movements During Visual Orienting

Dissecting the role of peripheral immunity in Alzheimer’s Disease pathogenesis and disease course

Experience-dependent genetic and synaptic regulation of stability and plasticity in cortical circuits

Understanding spontaneous neuronal activity with neurophotonics

Germ-cell migration and fate maintenance in zebrafish

Dendritic voltage imaging, excitability rules, and plasticity

Chromatin 3D distribution in live muscle nuclei: impacts on epigenetic activation/repression of chromatin

Toward “reading” and “writing” neural population codes in the primate cortex

Mood temporal dynamics characterized with computational and engineering-based approaches

Beyond the arcuate fasciculus: A multiplicity of language pathways in the human brain

Reprogramming the topology of the nociceptive circuit in C. elegans reshapes sexual behavior

Local and long-range inputs contributing to sequence generation in the zebra finch

Volatile cortical working memory representations crystalize with practice

Cognitive neuroscience of learning and memory in human infants

The neurocircuit underlying social approach and avoidance behavior

Illuminating neural computations with structured light and sound wavefronts

Features and Objects as Perceptual Attractors: Theory, Paradigm, and Results from The Rat’s Whisker System

Smell and our unconscious sense of self

An Innate Immunity Pathway Against Invading Microbes Targets the Paternal Mitochondria for Destruction after Fertilization

Nature, nurture, and the neuroscience of parenthood

Nature, nurture, and the neuroscience of parenthood

Correlated light and electron microscopy reveal recurrent circuit motives in the zebrafish hindbrain visual integrator network

Navigation in larval zebrafish:strategies and internal representations

The neurobiological function of experience-regulated genomic enhancers From transcriptional mechanisms to control over synaptic plasticity and sensory processing

Neuronal activity and noise in synaptic wiring specificity

Deciphering integration of contradictory signals in epithelial-to-mesenchymal transition

Horizontal cells of the vertebrate retina – From channels to functions

Sensory processing in the whisker system of awake, behaving mice

How the brain transforms sensory input into action

Cerebral Cortex Connectomics

Mapping brainstem nuclei structure and connectivity in health and disease

Active vision and vision for action

The development and molecular mechanisms of crystal-forming cells

My adventures in the rat interactive foraging facility (RIFF)

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

Rapid learning (and unlearning) in the human brain

Is behaviour a developmental trait?

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

Latent cause inference in learning and decision making

Renewal and plasticity in oral and gastrointestinal epithelia

How movement regulates defensive behaviours in a social context

Deciphering non-neuronal cells contribution to Alzheimer’s disease pathology using high throughput transcriptomic and proteomic methods

Organization of long-term behavior and individuality across developmental timescales

Molecular maps for odor processing in the mouse olfactory system

Skeletal muscle differentiation and fusion across scales

Selective vascular injury induces degeneration of the olfactory bulb and development of alternatives for functional olfaction

Mapping internal representations with adaptive sampling, massive online experiments and cross-cultural research

Limb development: old equation new solution

Valence Based Learning in Primate Amygdala Single-Neurons

How brains add vectors

Emergent collective coding properties in hippocampal neuronal population activity

Representation of 3D space in the mammalian brain:From 3D grid cells in flying bats to 3D perception in flying humans