All events, 2013

The Simultaneous Type/Serial Token Model of temporal attention and working memory encoding, with applications in brain-computer interaction and lie detection

Lecture
Date:
Tuesday, December 31, 2013
Hour: 12:30
Location:
Gerhard M.J. Schmidt Lecture Hall
Prof. Howard Bowman
|
Centre for Cognitive Neuroscience and Cognitive Systems University of Kent at Canterbury, UK

The Simultaneous Type/ Serial Token (STST) model [Bowman & Wyble, 2007] was developed as a theory of how attention is deployed through time and how working memory representations are formed. It provides a neural explanation of perceptual phenomena, particularly those observed using Rapid Serial Visual Presentation (RSVP), e.g. attentional blink, repetition blindness, temporal conjunction errors and perceptual episodes, e.g. see [Wyble et al, 2011]. Its activation dynamics have also been tied to the P3 event related potential component [Craston et al, 2009], which has been argued to be an electrophysiological correlate of conscious perception. I will describe the STST model and its behavioural and electrophysiological verification. Finally, I will highlight applications of these RSVP-P3 effects in brain computer interaction and lie detection. I will also discuss what I consider to be the motivation for computational modelling. [Bowman and Wyble, 2007] The simultaneous type, serial token model of temporal attention and working memory. H. Bowman and B. Wyble. Psychological Review, 114(1):182-196, January 2007. http://www.cs.kent.ac.uk/pubs/2007/2419/index.html [Wyble et al, 2011] Attentional episodes in visual perception. B.Wyble, M.Potter, H. Bowman, and M.Nieuwenstein. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 140(3):182-196, August 2011. http://www.cs.kent.ac.uk/pubs/2011/3205/index.html [Craston et al, 2009] The attentional blink reveals serial working memory encoding: Evidence from virtual & human event-related potentials. Patrick Craston, Brad Wyble, Srivas Chennu, and Howard Bowman. Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience, 21(3):182-196, March 2009. http://www.cs.kent.ac.uk/pubs/2009/2715/index.html

Defining the role for prefrontal cortex in memory-guided sensory decision-making

Lecture
Date:
Monday, December 30, 2013
Hour: 15:00
Location:
Nella and Leon Benoziyo Building for Brain Research
Prof. Tatiana Pasternak
|
Dept of Neurobiology and Anatomy, University of Rochester

: I will discuss how sensory information is represented and utilized in the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC) during memory for visual motion tasks. During such tasks, monkeys compare either directions or speeds of two sequential motion stimuli separated by a delay and report whether a current stimulus is the same or different from another held in working memory. We analyzed spiking activity in DLPFC during such tasks, identifying putative local interneurons and putative pyramidal projection neurons, a likely source of top-down influences DLPFC may be exerting on upstream sensory neurons. This analysis revealed that neurons of both types are selective for the speed and the direction of motion, with tuning reminiscent of that recorded in the motion processing area MT. Throughout the memory delay, many DLPFC neurons showed anticipatory rate modulations as well as transient periods of activity reflecting the preceding stimulus, and this activity was represented primarily by the putative pyramidal neurons. During the comparison stimulus, responses of both cell types showed modulation by the remembered stimulus and their activity was highly predictive of the animals’ behavioral report. The similarity in the way DLPFC neurons represent different sensory dimensions provide evidence for the existence of generalized mechanisms in the DLPFC sub-serving all stages of sensory working memory tasks, shedding light on top-down influences this region may be providing to the upstream sensory neurons during such tasks.

Challenges and Debates at the Frontiers of Brain&Cognition

Conference
Date:
Wednesday, December 25, 2013
Hour: 08:00 - 17:00
Location:
The David Lopatie Conference Centre

How Different Forms of Memory Guide Decisions and Actions

Lecture
Date:
Monday, December 23, 2013
Hour: 14:30
Location:
Gerhard M.J. Schmidt Lecture Hall
Prof. Daphna Shohamy
|
Dept of Psychology Columbia University, NY

: A longstanding question at the nexus of cognition and neuroscience concerns the distribution of the labor of learning across different brain systems: what are the different ways in which the brain learns? Recent research has focused on the role of the striatum and midbrain dopamine regions in habitual learning of stimulus-reward associations. However, emerging evidence suggests that the hippocampus – widely known for its role in building flexible memories – is also modulated by reward and innervated by dopamine. This raises new hypotheses about the role of the hippocampus in learning, the unique contributions of the hippocampus and the striatum, and the nature of the relationship between them. I will present studies that address these hypotheses using an integrative approach that combines functional imaging (fMRI) in healthy individuals with studies of learning in patients with selective damage to the striatum or the hippocampus. Converging data from these approaches suggests that both the striatum and the hippocampus contribute to learning, with distinct implications for how learned information guides decisions.

An innovative hybrid of White Light based spinning disk technology and structured illumination

Lecture
Date:
Wednesday, December 11, 2013
Hour: 09:30
Location:
Nella and Leon Benoziyo Building for Brain Research
Bruno Combettes, PhD
|
Andor Microscopy Specialist Andor Technologies

During the seminar we will introduce latest developments in white light Spinning disk confocal technique as well as in active illumination. We will first demonstrate how structured light based spinning disk is giving a high resolution and high confocality solution. Images and movies of various biological samples will be presented. We will also describe the recent developments in active illumination of which can be easily installed on each existing microscope and can be used in Photo-stimulation, uncaging, Ablation etc. We will present images and movies of typical Optogenetics experiments using the new DMD based Mosaic 3. Link to systems: Andor Revolution DSD: http://www.andor.com/microscopy-systems/revolution-dsd Active Illumination: http://www.andor.com/microscopy-systems/active-illumination

The fast and the slow: Neuronal oscillators, feedback, and control in the vibrissa system

Lecture
Date:
Tuesday, December 10, 2013
Hour: 12:30
Location:
Gerhard M.J. Schmidt Lecture Hall
Prof. David Kleinfeld
|
Departments of Physics and Neurobiology University of California at San Diego

Prof. Kleinfeld will present recent work on the control of rhythmic whisking in rodents. These studies bear on the apparent role of breathing as a master clock that drives orofacial actions, establishes a hierarchy of control of orofacial behaviors, and may temporally bind different orofacial inputs.

Adaptive Immunity at the Choroid Plexus Shapes Brain Function Throughout Life

Lecture
Date:
Tuesday, December 10, 2013
Hour: 11:00
Location:
Nella and Leon Benoziyo Building for Brain Research
Aleksandra Deczkowska
|
MSc Student, Prof. Michal Schwartz Group Department of Neurobiology

Cortical Inhibition, Excitation and Cognitive Enhancement

Lecture
Date:
Thursday, November 28, 2013
Hour: 13:00
Location:
Gerhard M.J. Schmidt Lecture Hall
Dr. Roi Cohen Kadosh
|
Department of Experimental Psychology University of Oxford, UK

Academic achievements such as math and reading are key predictors for future success at school, university, and later in life. Additionally, failure in these critical capacities negatively impacts the welfare of society as a whole. Current understanding of the link between high-level cognition, such as math and reading, and the brain has been primarily restricted to understanding the relationship between brain structure or function. At the same time a substantial body of animal and clinical research showing that cortical inhibition and excitation at the molecular or cellular levels play a critical role in efficient information transfer in the brain. It has further been suggested that cortical inhibition and excitation affects cognition in humans. I will present several studies that show how cortical inhibition and excitation are linked to high-level cognitive abilities in the child and adult human brain, and specifically how we can exogenously modulate cortical inhibition and excitation to optimise brain functions and improve cognition in typical and atypical populations. Such a multidisciplinary approach has the potential to bridge the separated strands of current research in psychology and education, system and molecular neuroscience, as well as animal models.

TRP channels: what are they and why are they important for understanding neuronal functions

Lecture
Date:
Tuesday, November 19, 2013
Hour: 12:30
Location:
Gerhard M.J. Schmidt Lecture Hall
Prof. Baruch Minke
|
Depts of Medical Neurobiology, the Institute of Medical Research Israel-Canada (IMRIC), the Edmond and Lily Safra Center for Brain Sciences (ELSC) Faculty of Medicine of the Hebrew University, Jerusalem

Transient receptor potential (TRP) channels constitute a large superfamily of polymodal channel proteins with diverse roles in many transduction and sensory pathways. These channels participate in most sensory modalities (e.g. vision, taste, temperature, pain, pheromone detection) and they either open directly in response to ligands or physical stimuli (e.g. temperature, osmotic pressure, or noxious substances) or, indirectly, downstream of a signal transduction cascade. TRP channels form an evolutionary conserved novel cation channel family consisting of seven subfamilies, which include nearly 30 human members. The founding member of this family was found in Drosophila and was designated TRP by Minke. TRP channels are classified into seven related subfamilies designated TRPC (Canonical or classical), TRPM (Melastatin), TRPN (NompC), TRPV (Vanilloid receptor), TRPA (ANKTM1), TRPP (Polycystin) and TRPML (Mucolipin). Our studies in Drosophila shed new light on the properties of the TRP channels by showing that a constitutive ATP-dependent process is required to keep these channels closed in the dark, a requirement that would make them sensitive to metabolic stress. Since mammalian TRP channels are heavily expressed in the brain, neuronal damage due to ischemia may involves activation of TRP channels.

Dendritic Computation

Lecture
Date:
Thursday, October 17, 2013
Hour: 17:00
Location:
Nella and Leon Benoziyo Building for Brain Research
Prof. Michael Hausser
|
The Wolfson Institute for Biomedical Research University College London

The computational power of single neurons has long been predicted using modelling approaches, but actual experimental examples of how neurons, and in particular their dendrites, can solve computational problems are rare. I will describe experiments using 2-photon glutamate uncaging in vitro, combined with in vivo 2-photon imaging and patch-clamp recording that demonstrate how active dendrites contribute to shaping canonical cortical computations.

Pages

All events, 2013

The Simultaneous Type/Serial Token Model of temporal attention and working memory encoding, with applications in brain-computer interaction and lie detection

Lecture
Date:
Tuesday, December 31, 2013
Hour: 12:30
Location:
Gerhard M.J. Schmidt Lecture Hall
Prof. Howard Bowman
|
Centre for Cognitive Neuroscience and Cognitive Systems University of Kent at Canterbury, UK

The Simultaneous Type/ Serial Token (STST) model [Bowman & Wyble, 2007] was developed as a theory of how attention is deployed through time and how working memory representations are formed. It provides a neural explanation of perceptual phenomena, particularly those observed using Rapid Serial Visual Presentation (RSVP), e.g. attentional blink, repetition blindness, temporal conjunction errors and perceptual episodes, e.g. see [Wyble et al, 2011]. Its activation dynamics have also been tied to the P3 event related potential component [Craston et al, 2009], which has been argued to be an electrophysiological correlate of conscious perception. I will describe the STST model and its behavioural and electrophysiological verification. Finally, I will highlight applications of these RSVP-P3 effects in brain computer interaction and lie detection. I will also discuss what I consider to be the motivation for computational modelling. [Bowman and Wyble, 2007] The simultaneous type, serial token model of temporal attention and working memory. H. Bowman and B. Wyble. Psychological Review, 114(1):182-196, January 2007. http://www.cs.kent.ac.uk/pubs/2007/2419/index.html [Wyble et al, 2011] Attentional episodes in visual perception. B.Wyble, M.Potter, H. Bowman, and M.Nieuwenstein. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 140(3):182-196, August 2011. http://www.cs.kent.ac.uk/pubs/2011/3205/index.html [Craston et al, 2009] The attentional blink reveals serial working memory encoding: Evidence from virtual & human event-related potentials. Patrick Craston, Brad Wyble, Srivas Chennu, and Howard Bowman. Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience, 21(3):182-196, March 2009. http://www.cs.kent.ac.uk/pubs/2009/2715/index.html

Defining the role for prefrontal cortex in memory-guided sensory decision-making

Lecture
Date:
Monday, December 30, 2013
Hour: 15:00
Location:
Nella and Leon Benoziyo Building for Brain Research
Prof. Tatiana Pasternak
|
Dept of Neurobiology and Anatomy, University of Rochester

: I will discuss how sensory information is represented and utilized in the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC) during memory for visual motion tasks. During such tasks, monkeys compare either directions or speeds of two sequential motion stimuli separated by a delay and report whether a current stimulus is the same or different from another held in working memory. We analyzed spiking activity in DLPFC during such tasks, identifying putative local interneurons and putative pyramidal projection neurons, a likely source of top-down influences DLPFC may be exerting on upstream sensory neurons. This analysis revealed that neurons of both types are selective for the speed and the direction of motion, with tuning reminiscent of that recorded in the motion processing area MT. Throughout the memory delay, many DLPFC neurons showed anticipatory rate modulations as well as transient periods of activity reflecting the preceding stimulus, and this activity was represented primarily by the putative pyramidal neurons. During the comparison stimulus, responses of both cell types showed modulation by the remembered stimulus and their activity was highly predictive of the animals’ behavioral report. The similarity in the way DLPFC neurons represent different sensory dimensions provide evidence for the existence of generalized mechanisms in the DLPFC sub-serving all stages of sensory working memory tasks, shedding light on top-down influences this region may be providing to the upstream sensory neurons during such tasks.

How Different Forms of Memory Guide Decisions and Actions

Lecture
Date:
Monday, December 23, 2013
Hour: 14:30
Location:
Gerhard M.J. Schmidt Lecture Hall
Prof. Daphna Shohamy
|
Dept of Psychology Columbia University, NY

: A longstanding question at the nexus of cognition and neuroscience concerns the distribution of the labor of learning across different brain systems: what are the different ways in which the brain learns? Recent research has focused on the role of the striatum and midbrain dopamine regions in habitual learning of stimulus-reward associations. However, emerging evidence suggests that the hippocampus – widely known for its role in building flexible memories – is also modulated by reward and innervated by dopamine. This raises new hypotheses about the role of the hippocampus in learning, the unique contributions of the hippocampus and the striatum, and the nature of the relationship between them. I will present studies that address these hypotheses using an integrative approach that combines functional imaging (fMRI) in healthy individuals with studies of learning in patients with selective damage to the striatum or the hippocampus. Converging data from these approaches suggests that both the striatum and the hippocampus contribute to learning, with distinct implications for how learned information guides decisions.

An innovative hybrid of White Light based spinning disk technology and structured illumination

Lecture
Date:
Wednesday, December 11, 2013
Hour: 09:30
Location:
Nella and Leon Benoziyo Building for Brain Research
Bruno Combettes, PhD
|
Andor Microscopy Specialist Andor Technologies

During the seminar we will introduce latest developments in white light Spinning disk confocal technique as well as in active illumination. We will first demonstrate how structured light based spinning disk is giving a high resolution and high confocality solution. Images and movies of various biological samples will be presented. We will also describe the recent developments in active illumination of which can be easily installed on each existing microscope and can be used in Photo-stimulation, uncaging, Ablation etc. We will present images and movies of typical Optogenetics experiments using the new DMD based Mosaic 3. Link to systems: Andor Revolution DSD: http://www.andor.com/microscopy-systems/revolution-dsd Active Illumination: http://www.andor.com/microscopy-systems/active-illumination

The fast and the slow: Neuronal oscillators, feedback, and control in the vibrissa system

Lecture
Date:
Tuesday, December 10, 2013
Hour: 12:30
Location:
Gerhard M.J. Schmidt Lecture Hall
Prof. David Kleinfeld
|
Departments of Physics and Neurobiology University of California at San Diego

Prof. Kleinfeld will present recent work on the control of rhythmic whisking in rodents. These studies bear on the apparent role of breathing as a master clock that drives orofacial actions, establishes a hierarchy of control of orofacial behaviors, and may temporally bind different orofacial inputs.

Adaptive Immunity at the Choroid Plexus Shapes Brain Function Throughout Life

Lecture
Date:
Tuesday, December 10, 2013
Hour: 11:00
Location:
Nella and Leon Benoziyo Building for Brain Research
Aleksandra Deczkowska
|
MSc Student, Prof. Michal Schwartz Group Department of Neurobiology

Cortical Inhibition, Excitation and Cognitive Enhancement

Lecture
Date:
Thursday, November 28, 2013
Hour: 13:00
Location:
Gerhard M.J. Schmidt Lecture Hall
Dr. Roi Cohen Kadosh
|
Department of Experimental Psychology University of Oxford, UK

Academic achievements such as math and reading are key predictors for future success at school, university, and later in life. Additionally, failure in these critical capacities negatively impacts the welfare of society as a whole. Current understanding of the link between high-level cognition, such as math and reading, and the brain has been primarily restricted to understanding the relationship between brain structure or function. At the same time a substantial body of animal and clinical research showing that cortical inhibition and excitation at the molecular or cellular levels play a critical role in efficient information transfer in the brain. It has further been suggested that cortical inhibition and excitation affects cognition in humans. I will present several studies that show how cortical inhibition and excitation are linked to high-level cognitive abilities in the child and adult human brain, and specifically how we can exogenously modulate cortical inhibition and excitation to optimise brain functions and improve cognition in typical and atypical populations. Such a multidisciplinary approach has the potential to bridge the separated strands of current research in psychology and education, system and molecular neuroscience, as well as animal models.

TRP channels: what are they and why are they important for understanding neuronal functions

Lecture
Date:
Tuesday, November 19, 2013
Hour: 12:30
Location:
Gerhard M.J. Schmidt Lecture Hall
Prof. Baruch Minke
|
Depts of Medical Neurobiology, the Institute of Medical Research Israel-Canada (IMRIC), the Edmond and Lily Safra Center for Brain Sciences (ELSC) Faculty of Medicine of the Hebrew University, Jerusalem

Transient receptor potential (TRP) channels constitute a large superfamily of polymodal channel proteins with diverse roles in many transduction and sensory pathways. These channels participate in most sensory modalities (e.g. vision, taste, temperature, pain, pheromone detection) and they either open directly in response to ligands or physical stimuli (e.g. temperature, osmotic pressure, or noxious substances) or, indirectly, downstream of a signal transduction cascade. TRP channels form an evolutionary conserved novel cation channel family consisting of seven subfamilies, which include nearly 30 human members. The founding member of this family was found in Drosophila and was designated TRP by Minke. TRP channels are classified into seven related subfamilies designated TRPC (Canonical or classical), TRPM (Melastatin), TRPN (NompC), TRPV (Vanilloid receptor), TRPA (ANKTM1), TRPP (Polycystin) and TRPML (Mucolipin). Our studies in Drosophila shed new light on the properties of the TRP channels by showing that a constitutive ATP-dependent process is required to keep these channels closed in the dark, a requirement that would make them sensitive to metabolic stress. Since mammalian TRP channels are heavily expressed in the brain, neuronal damage due to ischemia may involves activation of TRP channels.

Dendritic Computation

Lecture
Date:
Thursday, October 17, 2013
Hour: 17:00
Location:
Nella and Leon Benoziyo Building for Brain Research
Prof. Michael Hausser
|
The Wolfson Institute for Biomedical Research University College London

The computational power of single neurons has long been predicted using modelling approaches, but actual experimental examples of how neurons, and in particular their dendrites, can solve computational problems are rare. I will describe experiments using 2-photon glutamate uncaging in vitro, combined with in vivo 2-photon imaging and patch-clamp recording that demonstrate how active dendrites contribute to shaping canonical cortical computations.

Giving the brain a voice by converting traditional EEG into maps of brain activity: implication ranging from sleeping birds to humans with ALS

Lecture
Date:
Thursday, October 17, 2013
Hour: 11:00
Location:
Dolfi and Lola Ebner Auditorium
Dr. Philip Low
|
Founder, Chairman, and CEO of NeuroVigil See: http://www.neurovigil.com/leadership/

Pages

All events, 2013

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All events, 2013

Challenges and Debates at the Frontiers of Brain&Cognition

Conference
Date:
Wednesday, December 25, 2013
Hour: 08:00 - 17:00
Location:
The David Lopatie Conference Centre

Optogenetics: from cells to circuits and behavior

Conference
Date:
Sunday, July 14, 2013
Hour: 08:00 - 18:00
Location:
The David Lopatie Conference Centre

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WIS-Australia Symposium on Metabolic Syndroms

Conference
Date:
Sunday, May 12, 2013
Hour: 08:00 - 16:45
Location:
The David Lopatie Conference Centre

Emotional memories and stress: from normal physiology to psychopathology

Conference
Date:
Thursday, April 25, 2013
Hour:
Location:
The David Lopatie Conference Centre

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Brain Sciences open day

Conference
Date:
Thursday, February 7, 2013
Hour: 12:30 - 16:00
Location:
The David Lopatie Conference Centre

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Inflammation: A friend & a foe

Conference
Date:
Sunday, February 3, 2013
Hour: 08:00 - 20:00
Location:
The David Lopatie Conference Centre

Homepage