Dr. Mark Brandon: Stability and drift in neural representations

Rudy North Lecture Theatre, Djavad Mowafaghian Centre for Brain Health 2215 Wesbrook Mall, Vancouver

How does the brain maintain stable internal representations of the world while also remaining flexible enough to learn, adapt, and predict the future?  This is a central question in systems […]


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Dr. Guillaume Dumas: Multi-Brain Neuroscience: from Generative Neurophenomenology to Inter-Personalized Psychiatry

Rudy North Lecture Theatre, Djavad Mowafaghian Centre for Brain Health 2215 Wesbrook Mall, Vancouver

Human cognition and mental health do not arise from the brain alone, but from continuous interactions among people, bodies, and social environments. This talk introduces a multi-brain perspective on neuroscience that connects research on consciousness with new directions in psychiatry. Using recent advances that enable multiple brains to be recorded simultaneously, we explore how everyday […]


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Dr. Kelsie Eichel: Building a polarized neuron: from C. elegans to humans

Rudy North Lecture Theatre, Djavad Mowafaghian Centre for Brain Health 2215 Wesbrook Mall, Vancouver

Neurons are defined by their remarkable polarity, a feature that is highly conserved across most nervous systems. A key neuronal structure, the axon initial segment (AIS), is essential for establishing and maintaining a functional, polarized neuronal architecture. As such, defects in the AIS and a loss of polarity are associated with neurological dysfunction and numerous […]


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Dr. Christian Ruff: Neurocomputational Underpinnings of Altered Mentalization in Autism

Rudy North Lecture Theatre, Djavad Mowafaghian Centre for Brain Health 2215 Wesbrook Mall, Vancouver

A key behavioral characteristic of autistic individuals is difficulty with mentalization—the ability to understand and respond to the mental states of others. While these difficulties have important social and clinical consequences, the neurocognitive mechanisms underlying them remain poorly understood. In this presentation, I will argue that one reason for this lack of progress is the limitation of standard experimental approaches […]


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Dr. Jennifer Gommerman: Targeting B cells in MS – understanding mechanisms of action.

Rudy North Lecture Theatre, Djavad Mowafaghian Centre for Brain Health 2215 Wesbrook Mall, Vancouver

I will be presenting data on an animal model of Multiple Sclerosis (MS) progression, how we have used this model to better understand disease progression and to understand how MS treatments impact this process. By going back and forth between the animal model and MS tissues, we have learned about what can trigger so-called “compartmentalized […]


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Dr. Jonathan Pillow: Disentangling the Roles of Distinct Cell Classes with Cell-Type Dynamical Systems

Rudy North Lecture Theatre, Djavad Mowafaghian Centre for Brain Health 2215 Wesbrook Mall, Vancouver

A large body of recent work has focused on the problem of inferring neural population dynamics from recordings of neural activity. However, these models typically ignore the fact that the brain contains multiple cell types, which limits their ability to predict the effects of cell-specific perturbations, or to capture the functional roles of distinct cell […]


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Dr. Jessica Bolton: Programming vulnerability: The role of microglia in sculpting stress circuits after early-life adversity

Rudy North Lecture Theatre, Djavad Mowafaghian Centre for Brain Health 2215 Wesbrook Mall, Vancouver

Dr. Bolton will discuss how early-life adversity impacts brain development in the context of psychiatric disorders, with a focus on the role of microglia in the synaptic rewiring of stress-sensitive neurons after early-life adversity. I will also describe our work on sex-dependent differences in microglia and synaptic development, as well as the molecular mechanisms by […]


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Dr. Deblina Sarkar: Circulatronics: Surgery-Free Neural Implants for Focal Brain Stimulation

Rudy North Lecture Theatre, Djavad Mowafaghian Centre for Brain Health 2215 Wesbrook Mall, Vancouver

Bioelectronic implants for brain stimulation provide critical tools for treating brain diseases as well as investigating fundamental biology but require invasive surgery. In this talk I will discuss a new class of implants which we named Circulatronics: wherein intravenously introduced bioelectronic devices travel through the body’s global internal roadways i.e., the circulatory system, and autonomously […]


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