Integrated Calendar

60 years ago, Hodgkin and Huxley published their seminal papers which described the kinetics of voltage-gated ionic currents in the squid giant axon and used these measurements to produce the fundamental model of action potential generation. Their findings have become the basis for our understanding of neuronal excitability and information processing and are central to computational models of neuronal function. However, it turns out that the precise activation and inactivation characteristics of voltage-gated sodium channels in the CNS can vary widely, not only depending on the brain region, cell type and molecular subunit, but also as a function of the location of channels within the neuron and their relationship to the local membrane cytoskeleton. These differences in current properties can have a profound functional impact. I will discuss our data on transient and persistent sodium currents in the various compartments of the cortical pyramidal neuron, collected in brain slices using whole-cell current and on-cell single channel recordings and imaging of sodium-sensitive fluorescent dyes.

Cognition materializes in an interpersonal space. The emergence of complex behaviors requires the coordination of actions among individuals according to a shared set of rules. Despite the central role of other individuals in shaping our minds, experiments typically isolate human or animal subjects from their natural environment by placing them in a sealed quiet room where interactions occur solely with a computer screen. In everyday life, however, we spend most of our time interacting with other individuals. In the talk I will argue in favor of a shift from a single-brain to a multi-brain frame of reference. I will present a series of studies aimed at characterizing the brain-to-brain coupling during real life social interaction. The data suggest that in many cases the neural processes in one brain are coupled to the neural processes in another brain via the transmission of a signal through the environment. The brain-to-brain neural coupling exposes a shared neural substrate that exhibits temporally aligned response patterns across communicators. The recording of the neural responses from two brains opens a new window into the neural basis of interpersonal communication, and may be used to assess verbal and non-verbal forms of interaction in both human and other model systems.

June 25, 2012
09:30 to 17:00
Weizmann Institute of Science
Physics Building, Weissman Auditorium



09:30 – 09:40 Opening Remarks – David Mukamel

09:40 – 10:00 Nir Davidson, Weizmann Institute
Phase synchronization of coupled lasers on complex networks

10:00 – 10:20 Ofer Feinerman, Weizmann Institute
Ant particles (?)

10:20 – 10:40 Or Cohen, Weizmann Institute
Density large-deviations of nonconserving driven models

10:40 – 11:00 Guy Bunin, Technion
Rare events in driven diffusive systems – numerics and simple models

Coffee Break


11:30 – 11:50 Scott Kirkpatrick, Hebrew University
Inferring function from structure in communication networks

11:50 – 12:10 Neri Merhav and Yariv Kafri, Technion Bose–Einstein condensation in the large deviations regime with
applications to information system models

12:10 – 12:30 Giulio Biroli, CEA Saclay
Ideal glass transitions by random pinning

12:30 – 12:50 Shlomi Reuveni1 Uri Yechiali1 and Iddo Eliazar2
Tel Aviv University1 and Holon Institute of Technology2
The asymetric inclusion process


Lunch Break

14:00 – 14:20 Erez Braun, Technion
Protein fluctuations in a cell population: universality and collective modes

14:20 – 14:40 Jay Fineberg, Hebrew University
Static friction coefficient is not a material constant

14:40 – 15:00 Shmuel Rubinstein, Weizmann Institute
Bacterial biofilms: bugs can see the big picture

15:00 – 15:20 Yosi Yeshurun, Bar-Ilan University
Broadening of the resistive transition in Y-Ba-Cu-O nano wires

Coffee Break


15:50 – 16:10 D. Hurowitz, Ben Gurion University
The non-equilibrium steady state of sparse systems with non-trivial topology

16:10 – 16:30 Yossi Avron, Technion
Adiabatic quantum transport in open systems

16:30 – 16:50 David J. Bergman, Tel Aviv University
Self-consistent effective-medium approximation for strong-field magneto-transport in a composite medium