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Environmental light intensity affects the nervous system and is a powerful modulator of behavior. Light-intensity-dependent activity is observed in a subset of retinal output cells, which innervate a newly discovered nucleus of the dorsal thalamus, that in turn projects to the prefrontal cortex and striatum. Silencing the transmission along this pathway has been shown to affect mood. I will describe the retinal networks responsible for the transmission of light intensity signals, and show new results demonstrating the capacity for light-intensity encoding in diverse brain regions.
Zoom Seminar
Zoom Link:
https://weizmann.zoom.us/j/95406893197?pwd=REt5L1g3SmprMUhrK3dpUDJVeHlrZz09
Meeting ID: 954 0689 3197
Password: 750421

: 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

baradhn@is.mpg.de
In the quest for improving sustainability of earth’s resources, discovery of new catalysts is a press-ing issue. There are several reasons for that, among which are:
First, presently the most efficient and stable catalysts for the chemical processes that we use to transform raw resources into products with the desired functions (materials or energy type), contain expensive and non-abundant elements such as Pt, Ir, and Ru. This explains the efforts to find abundant, accessible, low-cost, stable alternatives that will yield functionality comparable to exist-ing catalysts. For example, for water splitting, many new materials with different compositions have shown promising results as catalysts. However, they are mostly prepared by wet chemical synthesis, which results in chemical waste and can be too slow for industrial use. Second, the morphology of the materials is important, because it affects their catalytic properties as higher surface areas yield more catalytic active sites, surface energetics change, leading to improved reaction rates, and other differences that affect catalytic activity. These reasons emphasize the motivation to accelerate the process of finding new materials with varying nanostructures and optimized functionality, by sys-tematic exploration of several parameter spaces.
Glancing angle deposition (GLAD) is a physical vapor deposition (PVD) shadow growth technique where the substrate is positioned at an oblique angle to the vapor source and can be manipulated with regard to substrate tilt angle and rotation, during the deposition. The thin films obtained by GLAD have unique nano-structures, which depend on ballistic shadowing of the substrate, and are formed as nano-structured films, leading to 3D nano-fabrication.
I will present the first original results I obtained of using GLAD to form different types of material compositions and nanostructures as functional catalysts for sustainable resources. Nano-scale mor-phology and material composition are varied simultaneously using an adapted shadow growth GLAD system,[1] which eliminates the commonly used wet chemical steps for nanostructure synthe-sis. In a well-controlled one-step growth, I quickly and directly attain a large number of different nano-columnar structures, including nanorods, nano-barcodes, and nano-zigzags, with varying ma-terial compositions, on a single large-area substrate. GLAD also serves to form nanoporous ultra-thin mesh structures, in a novel dry synthesis method.[2] Both nanostructure types were studied for their electrocatalytic performance in the O2 evolution as well as CH3OH oxidation reactions and show high activity and stability. The insights I gained, show a dependence of catalytic activity on composition and nanostructuring, which the standard experimental techniques cannot achieve or explore, thus illustrating the importance and impact that GLAD has, and will have, on developing sustainable catalysts.

[1] H.-N. Barad, M. Alarcón-Correa, G. Salinas, E. Oren, F. Peter, A. Kuhn, P. Fischer, Mater. To-day 2021, In Press, DOI 10.1016/j.mattod.2021.06.001.
[2] H. Kwon, H.-N. Barad, A. R. S. Olaya, M. Alarcon-Correa, K. Hahn, G. Richter, G. Wittstock, P. Fischer, ArXiv211105608 Phys. 2021.

Insects and other arthropods are central to the terrestrial food-webs and play important ecological roles, such as in nutrient cycling and pollination. Recent studies suggest significant declines in arthropod populations, including in abundant species, with potential widespread consequences -- 'the insect apocalypse'. Such challenging studies typically monitor relative measures of the overall biomass or abundance. However, absolute measures are often required in order to gain a holistic understanding of the state of terrestrial arthropods, their ecological significance, and the consequences of their possible decline.