Zoom option if unable to attend in person: Zoom link here (click on “Join a meeting”) Meeting ID: 91512 289258 Passcode: 289258 Objectives: 1) Neural stem cells build and regenerate the brain in part by forming oligodendrocytes, the myelinating cells of the central nervous system 2) Endogenous neural stem cells can be engaged in mouse models of neurodegenerative disorders for brain remyelination 3) Neurodegenerative disorders may have a neurodevelopmental origin, and neurodevelopmental disorders may have a neurodegenerative component.

Zoom option if unable to attend in person: Zoom link here (click on “Join a meeting”) Meeting ID: 91512 289258 Passcode: 289258 Decision-making is an unobservable cognitive process. This makes it challenging to investigate the underlying neuronal mechanisms. This lecture will discuss how techniques borrowed from the brain-machine interface field, such as decoding population activity and closed-loop control, can be used to understand how cognitive processes such as decision-making are implemented at the neuronal level. This approach could also lead to the development of novel devices for the treatment of neuropsychiatric disorders that involve impaired decision-making.

Dr. Annie Ciernia: "Mechanisms of Peripheral Lipopolysaccharide Induced Brain Inflammation" Dr. Paul van Donkelaar: "Characterizing tau pathology in survivors of intimate partner violence-related traumatic brain injury" Zoom option if unable to attend in person: Zoom link here (click on “Join a meeting”) Meeting ID: 91512 289258 Passcode: 289258

Neha Suvindran: "Reimagining Neuro-Bioelectronic Systems: Sustainable, Stable and Self-healing Fiber Electrodes" Drs. Rebecca Todd and Stan Floresco: "Translation Investigation of Neurophysiological Substrates of Active and inhibitory Avoidance in healthy and depressed populations." Zoom option if unable to attend in person: Zoom link here (click on “Join a meeting”) Meeting ID: 91512 289258 Passcode: 289258

Zoom option if unable to attend in person: Zoom link here (click on “Join a meeting”) Meeting ID: 91512 289258 Passcode: 289258 Learned fear often relapses after extinction, suggesting that extinction training generates a new memory that coexists with the original fear memory. Recent work from our lab has identified the hippocampus as a region where such fear and extinction memories exist and compete for expression. In this talk I will discuss recent work in our lab in which we have used activity-dependent neural tagging in mice to identify, manipulate, and characterize the cellular mechanisms of these hippocampal fear and extinction memories. […]

Zoom option if unable to attend in person: Zoom link here (click on “Join a meeting”) Meeting ID: 91512 289258 Passcode: 289258 Puberty and ensuing adolescence represent a time when the brain is rapidly developing and is sensitive to environmental stimuli. This lecture will discuss evidence that pubertal adversity puts females at risk for altered stress responding and maternal behavior later in life. Evidence will be presented that pubertal stress leads to an enduring programmatic event in the chromatin landscape in several brain regions, which may underlie both the lasting transcriptomic and behavioral consequences of pubertal stress.

Zoom option if unable to attend in person: Zoom link here (click on “Join a meeting”) Meeting ID: 91512 289258 Passcode: 289258 In the early stages of substance abuse, subjects receive a drug that is highly reinforcing and are thus likely to repeat the actions that led them to obtain it.  This is termed positive reinforcement. However, in a minority of people who develop an addiction phenotype, negative reinforcement also causes a behavior to be repeated, but in this case, the action causes a bad feeling or situation to go away. The mesolimbic dopamine system, which is thought to generate a teaching signal, is involved in the selection of advantageous behavioral repertoires. This brain pathway is under […]

Zoom option if unable to attend in person: Zoom link here (click on “Join a meeting”) Meeting ID: 91512 289258 Passcode: 289258 The vast majority of drugs fail when trying to go from animals to humans.  Some fields fail more than others, with psychiatry being at the pinnacle of a competition no field wants to win.  Understanding behavior has been difficult enough, delineating what went awry at the genetic and environmental level throughout development, to give rise to a myriad of disorders characterized by their behavior – is there a haystack big enough for that one needle?  Then developing drugs targeting those […]

Zoom option if unable to attend in person: Zoom link here (click on “Join a meeting”) Meeting ID: 91512 289258 Passcode: 289258 The claustrum is a small brain region forming dense synaptic connections with most of the cerebral cortex. However, the function of this region remains a mystery. I will highlight recent work from our group mapping the connectivity of claustrum neurons and determining how these cells control distinct cortical modules to participate in cognitive functions such as memory.

Zoom option if unable to attend in person: Zoom link here (click on “Join a meeting”) Meeting ID: 91512 289258 Passcode: 289258 It is well established that after vision loss, capabilities of the other sensory systems can be enhanced. However, particularly in animal models of vision loss, little has been done to examine how vision loss leads to alterations in the ‘blind brain’, and how these changes affect an animal's behavior. Here I will discuss our recent work describing changes in neuronal activity and animal behaviour in mice following vision loss.

Zoom option if unable to attend in person: Zoom link here (click on “Join a meeting”) Meeting ID: 91512 289258 Passcode: 289258 How are transient experiences converted into long-lasting memories? How do experiences modify behaviors? How do similar experiences elicit drastically different behavioral responses in the healthy and disease states? These are some of the questions that drive the research in my lab. We particularly focus on the mechanisms underlying the reconfiguration of neural circuits following sensory and behavioral experiences that leads to functional adaptation. While we know in many cases the brain regions that are involved, the identity of the neurons […]

Zoom option if unable to attend in person: Zoom link here (click on “Join a meeting”) Meeting ID: 91512 289258 Passcode: 289258 Hubel & Wiesel famously showed that the adult visual cortex changes very little with experience, and yet we are capable of learning to recognize new faces and places throughout our lives. I will describe recent work that examines the brain changes that accompany learning of a new visual stimulus or visual behaviour. Most changes occur slowly, over days or weeks, and these involve altered connections between visual cortex areas and higher-level cortical regions. Under appropriate conditions, we can observe learning […]