Djavad Mowafaghian Centre for Brain Health | DMCBH

Dr. Khaled Abdelrahman: Decoding the Intricacies of GPCR Signaling in neurodegenerative diseases
2024-05-31 11:00 - 12:00 (America/Vancouver) | DMCBH Room 3402, 2215 Wesbrook Mall, Vancouver, British Columbia, V6T 1Z3, Canada
Our research focuses on the intricate role of specific G protein-coupled receptors (GPCRs) in the pathophysiology of neurodegenerative diseases. A key aspect of our focus is unraveling the sex-specific regulation of GPCR signaling in these conditions. Through exploring these intricacies, we aim to illuminate novel therapeutic avenues and enhance our understanding of the complex interplay between GPCRs and neurodegeneration.
Zoom link: https://ubc.zoom.us/j/67841144478?pwd=[REDACTED]
Meeting ID: 678 4114 4478
Passcode: [REDACTED]

Dr. Mike Hildebrand: Bridging the translational divide: Development of human spinal cord assays for investigating molecular mechanisms and treatments for pain
2024-06-05 11:00 - 12:00 (America/Vancouver) | DMCBH Room 3402, 2215 Wesbrook Mall, Vancouver, British Columbia, V6T 1Z3, Canada
Summary: In this talk, Dr. Hildebrand will highlight his recent work aimed at bridging the translational divide between rodent preclinical work on spinal pain processing and new treatment approaches for humans. His team has developed new human spinal cord tissue models of pain signaling that parallel rodent in vivo and ex vivo pain models. Using these complementary approaches, they are investigating molecular mechanisms of pain processing across development, sex and species, including the regulation of excitatory glutamate receptors and neuronal excitability in dorsal horn nociceptive circuits.

Mike Hildebrand Bio: Dr. Mike Hildebrand completed his PhD in neurophysiology in Dr. Terry Snutch’s lab at UBC, followed by an industrial R&D fellowship at Neuromed Pharmaceuticals in Vancouver. After this, Dr. Hildebrand completed an academic postdoctoral fellowship in Mike Salter’s lab at Sick Kids Hospital. Dr. Hildebrand is now leading a translational pain research program as a Professor in the Neuroscience Department at Carleton University and as an Affiliate Investigator at The Ottawa Hospital. His research team is studying mechanisms of acute and chronic pain processing using animal and human spinal cord tissue models. Dr. Hildebrand is also the Chair of the Scientific Program Committee of the Canadian Pain Society and an Associate Dean in Graduate Studies at Carleton.

CLEAR 2024 Research Update Event
2024-06-06 15:00 - 18:00 (America/Vancouver) | DMCBH Room 3402, 2215 Wesbrook Mall, Vancouver, British Columbia, V6T 1Z3, Canada
Join the Canadians For Leading Edge Alzheimer Research (CLEAR) for their 2nd annual research update to learn about the latest research breakthroughs, participate in behind-the-scenes lab tours and network with the medical community and other supporters.
Speakers:

Dr. Freda Miller
Dr. Brian MacVicar
Dr. Anthony Phillips
Heather Sosa

RSVP: https://signup-can.keela.co/clear-2024-research-update-event
For any event inquiries, please contact marketing@clearalzheimers.ca

Dr. Peri Kurshan: Protein-lipid interactions drive presynaptic assembly prior to cell-adhesion molecule recruitment
2024-09-20 11:00 - 12:00 (America/Vancouver) | Rudy North Lecture Theatre, Djavad Mowafaghian Centre for Brain Health, 2215 Wesbrook Mall, Vancouver, British Columbia, V6T 1Z3, Canada
Zoom option if unable to attend in person:
Zoom link here (click on “Join a meeting”)
Meeting ID: 91512 289258
Passcode: [REDACTED]

Our lab uses C. elegans to study the molecular mechanisms of synapse development, focusing on how presynaptic proteins such as neurexins and active zone scaffold molecules interact and assemble. We have found a surprising role for protein-lipid interactions early in the process of synapse assembly. We also use C. elegans to model human patient mutations in presynaptic calcium channels to gain a better understanding of how and why these mutations lead to varied patient manifestations.

Distinct cognitive/perceptual/motor modes of fMRI brain activity: The proof is in the BOLD signal
2024-09-23 15:30 - 17:00 (America/Vancouver) | DMCBH Room 3402, 2215 Wesbrook Mall, Vancouver, British Columbia, V6T 1Z3, Canada
This month, Dr. Todd Woodward from the Department of Psychiatry, will present “Distinct cognitive/perceptual/motor modes of fMRI brain activity: The proof is in the BOLD signal.”
Zoom link if unable to attend in person:
https://ubc.zoom.us/j/63135246816?pwd=[REDACTED]
Meeting ID: 631 3524 6816
Passcode: [REDACTED]

Dr. Katharine Smith: Illuminating mechanisms of inhibitory synapse function and plasticity
2024-09-27 11:00 - 12:00 (America/Vancouver) | Rudy North Lecture Theatre, Djavad Mowafaghian Centre for Brain Health, 2215 Wesbrook Mall, Vancouver, British Columbia, V6T 1Z3, Canada
Zoom option if unable to attend in person:
Zoom link here (click on “Join a meeting”)
Meeting ID: 91512 289258
Passcode: [REDACTED]

The Smith lab investigates the molecular mechanisms that underly synaptic inhibition, its plasticity and how it is disrupted in disease. We use advanced microscopy techniques like super-resolution microscopy to analyze the fine details of the synapse, and link these findings to synapse function and diversity, therefore providing a new logic to synaptic inhibition.

Dr. Carrie Esopenko: Intimate Partner Violence-Brain Injury: What We Know and How Can We help?
2024-10-18 11:00 - 12:00 (America/Vancouver) | Rudy North Lecture Theatre, Djavad Mowafaghian Centre for Brain Health, 2215 Wesbrook Mall, Vancouver, British Columbia, V6T 1Z3, Canada
Zoom option if unable to attend in person:
Zoom link here (click on “Join a meeting”)
Meeting ID: 91512 289258
Passcode: [REDACTED]

Dr. Carrie Esopenko is an Associate Professor in the Brain Injury Research Center at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai Hospital in New York City. She is also holds an adjunct faculty appointment at the Traumatic Brain Injury and Concussion Center at the University of Utah, as well as in the Department of Family Medicine and Community Health at Rutgers – Robert Wood Johnson Medical School. She is the principal investigator of a National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke R01-funded multi-site study examining the psychological, cognitive, and neural signatures of IPV-related head trauma. She is the Lead Investigator of the ENIGMA Intimate Partner Violence (IPV) Working Group seeking to increase IPV brain injury research collaborations worldwide, and co-leads ENIGMA Global Knowledge Exchange Network which seeks to provide education and training supports to service providers and advocates working with IPV-related brain injury. Her research focuses on understanding the effects of neurotrauma and mental health conditions across populations, and identifying methods for injury prevention and patient-specific and community-based intervention strategies.

Peiying Wen: The effect of adult-neurogenesis in ECS (electroconvulsive shocks)-induced amnesia
2024-10-18 15:00 - 16:00 (America/Vancouver) | DMCBH Room 3402, 2215 Wesbrook Mall, Vancouver, British Columbia, V6T 1Z3, Canada
Join us for the UBC Behavioural Neuroscience Seminars (BNS), a lecture series featuring DMCBH trainees and professors in a casual setting. Talks take place from 3-4 pm every Friday in DMCBH 3402A-C and on Zoom. RSVP is not required.
This week’s speaker is Peiying Wen from the Snyder / Vila-Rodriguez labs.
Zoom link: https://ubc.zoom.us/j/62773707502?pwd=[REDACTED]
Meeting ID: 627 7370 7502 | Passcode: [REDACTED]
Visit the BNS website to view the full presentation schedule for the term and to subscribe to the mailing list for updates: https://bnsseminar.psych.ubc.ca/

BC Brain Wellness Program 5th Year Anniversary Celebration
2024-10-19 13:00 - 16:30 (America/Vancouver) | Rudy North Lecture Theatre, Djavad Mowafaghian Centre for Brain Health, 2215 Wesbrook Mall, Vancouver, British Columbia, V6T 1Z3, Canada
We are thrilled to invite you to celebrate the BC Brain Wellness Program’s 5th year anniversary -”Impact and Inspiration”!
Since its inception in October 2019, the Brain Wellness Program has provided lifestyle programming and presentations at no cost to individuals with chronic brain conditions, their care partners, and healthy agers. Join us for a day of reflection, celebration, and inspiration as we honour the past and embrace new possibilities to make even bigger impacts here at BC Brain Wellness.
The anniversary event will be a half-day hybrid event with programming that will include speakers, snack catering, door prizes, interactive workshops, a creative gallery, booths, and a reception-style networking session. There will also be a keynote presentation by Dr. Dean Ornish.

Dr. Catherine Peña: Early life stress primes sensitivity to future stress: from engrams to epigenetics
2024-10-25 11:00 - 12:00 (America/Vancouver) | Rudy North Lecture Theatre, Djavad Mowafaghian Centre for Brain Health, 2215 Wesbrook Mall, Vancouver, British Columbia, V6T 1Z3, Canada
Zoom option if unable to attend in person:
Zoom link here (click on “Join a meeting”)
Meeting ID: 91512 289258
Passcode: [REDACTED]

Early life stress increases sensitivity to stress later in life, which may be at the root of increased risk for mental health disorders. Our work seeks to understand the mechanistic underpinnings of this heightened stress sensitivity. Using transgenic mice to label and capture experience-actiated neurons, we show that neurons active during early life stress are more likely to be reactivated during adult stress experience, and that chemogenetically inhibiting these neurons rescues behavioral changes. Heightened cellular reactivity may be due to long-lasting changes in the epigenome that leave chromatin more open and transcriptionally reactive to additional stimuli, particularly in stress-activated neurons. Together, this work supports a biological model in which stress alters chromatin development, leading to increased cellular reactivity and ultimately behavioral sensitivity to future stress.

Annie Kim: Novel Virtual Reality (VR) Spatial Navigation Task, Neural Circuits for Computation, Cognition and Control
2024-10-25 15:00 - 16:00 (America/Vancouver) | DMCBH Room 3402, 2215 Wesbrook Mall, Vancouver, British Columbia, V6T 1Z3, Canada
Join us for the UBC Behavioural Neuroscience Seminars (BNS), a lecture series featuring DMCBH trainees and professors in a casual setting. Talks take place from 3-4 pm every Friday in DMCBH 3402A-C and on Zoom. RSVP is not required.
This week’s speaker is Annie Kim from the Madhav lab.
Zoom link: https://ubc.zoom.us/j/62773707502?pwd=[REDACTED]
Meeting ID: 627 7370 7502 | Passcode: [REDACTED]
Visit the BNS website to view the full presentation schedule for the term and to subscribe to the mailing list for updates: https://bnsseminar.psych.ubc.ca/

Mind and Mood: Innovative Methods for Understanding and Treating Cognitive Dysfunction in Mood Disorders
2024-10-28 15:30 - 17:00 (America/Vancouver) | DMCBH Room 3402, 2215 Wesbrook Mall, Vancouver, British Columbia, V6T 1Z3, Canada
This month, Dr. Trisha Chakrabarty from the Department of Psychiatry will present “Mind and Mood: Innovative Methods for Understanding and Treating Cognitive Dysfunction in Mood Disorders.”
Zoom link if unable to attend in person:
https://ubc.zoom.us/j/5936706150?pwd=[REDACTED]
Meeting ID: 593 670 6150
Passcode: [REDACTED]

Dr. Edmund Au: Elucidating Principles of Cortical Interneuron Synaptic Organization
2024-11-01 11:00 - 12:00 (America/Vancouver) | Rudy North Lecture Theatre, Djavad Mowafaghian Centre for Brain Health, 2215 Wesbrook Mall, Vancouver, British Columbia, V6T 1Z3, Canada
Zoom option if unable to attend in person:
Zoom link here (click on “Join a meeting”)
Meeting ID: 91512 289258
Passcode: [REDACTED]

Cortical interneurons are the most transcriptionally and morphologically diverse neurons in the brain, characterized in part by their striking degree of synaptic specificity. However, little is known about the extent of their synaptic diversity due to the lack of unbiased methods to extract features of synaptic organization among interneuron subtypes. In this talk, I will introduce an approach we developed that combines imaging and computational extraction of synaptic features from genetically-identified interneuron synapses and their subcellular specificity among postsynaptic targets. A machine-learning approach (1) reveals hundreds of spatial and structural features from each analyzed synapse, (2) constructs a multidimensional data set, consisting of millions of synapses, and (3) uncovers novel synaptic subgroups. By analyzing this dataset, we found that dendrite-targeting synaptic subgroups were clustered onto distinct subdomains of the dendrite along the proximal to distal axis; Soma-targeting subgroups were enriched onto different postsynaptic cell types; Finally, the two main subclasses of interneurons, basket cells and somatostatin interneurons, utilize distinct strategies to enact inhibitory synaptic coverage. Thus, we uncover previously unknown structural and topological features of inhibitory synaptic organization and establishes a conceptual framework for studying inhibitory synaptic diversity in health and disease.

Ava Momeni & Abhijit Chinchani: Using fMRI to Detect Cognitive Modes and tACS to Modulate the Neural Underpinnings of Cognitive Modes
2024-11-01 15:00 - 16:00 (America/Vancouver) | DMCBH Room 3402, 2215 Wesbrook Mall, Vancouver, British Columbia, V6T 1Z3, Canada
Join us for the UBC Behavioural Neuroscience Seminars (BNS), a lecture series featuring DMCBH trainees and professors in a casual setting. Talks take place from 3-4 pm every Friday in DMCBH 3402A-C and on Zoom. RSVP is not required.
This week’s speakers are Ava Momeni & Abhijit Chinchani from the Woodward lab.
Zoom link: https://ubc.zoom.us/j/62773707502?pwd=[REDACTED]
Meeting ID: 627 7370 7502 | Passcode: [REDACTED]
Visit the BNS website to view the full presentation schedule for the term and to subscribe to the mailing list for updates: https://bnsseminar.psych.ubc.ca/

Dr. Federico Bolanos: Exploring neural circuits for visual texture discrimination
2024-11-08 15:00 - 16:00 (America/Vancouver) | DMCBH Room 3402, 2215 Wesbrook Mall, Vancouver, British Columbia, V6T 1Z3, Canada
Join us for the UBC Behavioural Neuroscience Seminars (BNS), a lecture series featuring DMCBH trainees and professors in a casual setting. Talks take place from 3-4 pm every Friday in DMCBH 3402A-C and on Zoom. RSVP is not required.
This week’s speaker is Dr. Federico Bolanos from the NINC.
Zoom link: https://ubc.zoom.us/j/62773707502?pwd=[REDACTED]
Meeting ID: 627 7370 7502 | Passcode: [REDACTED]
Visit the BNS website to view the full presentation schedule for the term and to subscribe to the mailing list for updates: https://bnsseminar.psych.ubc.ca/

Dr. Anna Phan: How social isolation impairs learning
2024-11-15 11:00 - 12:00 (America/Vancouver) | Rudy North Lecture Theatre, Djavad Mowafaghian Centre for Brain Health, 2215 Wesbrook Mall, Vancouver, British Columbia, V6T 1Z3, Canada
Zoom option if unable to attend in person:
Zoom link here (click on “Join a meeting”)
Meeting ID: 91512 289258
Passcode: [REDACTED]

Social isolation and loneliness has been on the rise for the last 20yrs. Many studies have linked increased rates of isolation and loneliness to dementia, depression, anxiety, and other mental health disorders, but how isolation affects the brain to alter behaviors is unknown. Here, we focus on how isolation impairs learning and memory in the model organism Drosophila. We’ve found that isolation impairs learning and reduces synaptic proteins in the brains of fruit flies. This appears to cause alterations to their neural circuitry that impairs learning by reducing the capacity for synaptic plasticity.

Judy Cheng: Neuromodulatory control of glutamate transmission and motor learning in Huntington’s Disease mice
2024-11-15 15:00 - 16:00 (America/Vancouver) | DMCBH Room 3402, 2215 Wesbrook Mall, Vancouver, British Columbia, V6T 1Z3, Canada
Join us for the UBC Behavioural Neuroscience Seminars (BNS), a lecture series featuring DMCBH trainees and professors in a casual setting. Talks take place from 3-4 pm every Friday in DMCBH 3402A-C and on Zoom. RSVP is not required.
This week’s speaker is Judy Cheng from the Raymond lab.
Zoom link: https://ubc.zoom.us/j/62773707502?pwd=[REDACTED]
Meeting ID: 627 7370 7502 | Passcode: [REDACTED]
Visit the BNS website to view the full presentation schedule for the term and to subscribe to the mailing list for updates: https://bnsseminar.psych.ubc.ca/

"Capturing Grace" film screening
2024-11-16 10:00 - 12:00 UTC | Rudy North Lecture Theatre, Djavad Mowafaghian Centre for Brain Health, 2215 Wesbrook Mall, Vancouver, British Columbia, V6T 1Z3, Canada
Join us on November 16 for a FREE screening of the award-winning documentary “Capturing Grace,” which follows individuals with Parkinson’s as they prepare to stage a first-ever dance performance. Through determination, adversity, and contending with doubt, the film highlights the transformative power of art and the strength of the human spirit.
Coincidentally, 2024 marks the 10th anniversary of both the Djavad Mowafaghian Centre for Brain Health and the documentary film. Join us either in person or virtually for this moving experience!
The screening will be followed by a discussion with:

Dr. Silke Appel-Cresswell, Associate Professor and Marg Meikle Professor in Parkinson’s Disease
Dr. Cheryl Wellington, Professor, Department of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine
David Leventhal, Program Director, Dance for PD

Registration is now closed.

Event schedule (subject to change):
9:30-10:00 am: Registration/check-in and light refreshments
10:00-10:05 am: Welcome and introduction
10:05-11:05 am: Film screening
11:05-11:15 am: Interactive dance activity with Megan Walker-Straight, BC Brain Wellness Program instructor
11:15-11:35 am: Discussion/Q&A
11:35 am-12:00 pm: Refreshments

Dr. Sepideh Sadaghiani: The connectome multiplex
2024-11-22 11:00 - 12:00 (America/Vancouver) | Rudy North Lecture Theatre, Djavad Mowafaghian Centre for Brain Health, 2215 Wesbrook Mall, Vancouver, British Columbia, V6T 1Z3, Canada
Zoom option if unable to attend in person:
Zoom link here (click on “Join a meeting”)
Meeting ID: 91512 289258
Passcode: [REDACTED]

The human functional connectome has become synonymous with its fMRI heritage, which yields connectivity on the basis of extremely slow fluctuations of the hemodynamic signal. Recently however, these slow connectivity patterns have been complemented with fast connectivity from electrophysiological measures. In this talk, I will discuss synergistic investigations of the functional connectome that use multiple complimentary acquisition methods. This multi-modal approach has demonstrated that the connectome comprises both fast, oscillation-based connectivity observable in EEG, and extremely slow connectivity best captured with fMRI. While the fast and slow processes share spatial organization, these processes unfold in a temporally independent manner. Our findings suggest that equivalent dynamics are engaged across all timescales, but at different speeds. Infraslow and rapid connectivity of various frequency bands can thus be conceptualized as a multiplex of concurrent trajectories through a shared space of discrete connectome states. In conclusion, basic and translational research will benefit from comprehensively considering the full breadth of the functional connectome’s timescales.

Jessica Liu: Representational Drift of Contextual Fear Neuronal Representations Across the Brain
2024-11-22 15:00 - 16:00 (America/Vancouver) | DMCBH Room 3402, 2215 Wesbrook Mall, Vancouver, British Columbia, V6T 1Z3, Canada
Join us for the UBC Behavioural Neuroscience Seminars (BNS), a lecture series featuring DMCBH trainees and professors in a casual setting. Talks take place from 3-4 pm every Friday in DMCBH 3402A-C and on Zoom. RSVP is not required.
This week’s speaker is Jessica Liu from the Snyder lab.
Zoom link: https://ubc.zoom.us/j/62773707502?pwd=[REDACTED]
Meeting ID: 627 7370 7502 | Passcode: [REDACTED]
Visit the BNS website to view the full presentation schedule for the term and to subscribe to the mailing list for updates: https://bnsseminar.psych.ubc.ca/

Translational intersections and concurrent disorders in the fentanyl crisis
2024-11-25 15:30 - 17:00 (America/Vancouver) | DMCBH Room 3402, 2215 Wesbrook Mall, Vancouver, British Columbia, V6T 1Z3, Canada
This month, Dr. Victor Li from Vancouver General Hospital will present “Translational intersections and concurrent disorders in the fentanyl crisis.”
Zoom link if unable to attend in person:
https://ubc.zoom.us/j/5936706150?pwd=[REDACTED]
Meeting ID: 593 670 6150
Passcode: [REDACTED]

Dr. Paul Frankland: Ontogeny of hippocampus-dependent memory
2024-11-29 11:00 - 12:00 (America/Vancouver) | Rudy North Lecture Theatre, Djavad Mowafaghian Centre for Brain Health, 2215 Wesbrook Mall, Vancouver, British Columbia, V6T 1Z3, Canada
Zoom option if unable to attend in person:
Zoom link here (click on “Join a meeting”)
Meeting ID: 91512 289258
Passcode: [REDACTED]

Memories for events (i.e., episodic memories) formed in early development differ from those in adulthood in at least two regards. First, these memories tend to be rapidly forgotten (i.e., infantile amnesia). Second, they tend to be less precise than those formed in adulthood (i.e., infantile generalization). My talk will focus on the neurobiological mechanisms that account for these different operating characteristics of episodic memory in the developing brain. With respect to infantile amnesia, we have shown that maturation of cortical circuits is necessary for the formation of enduring event memories. With respect to infantile generalization, our studies reveal that maturation of inhibitory microcircuits in the hippocampus are necessary for the formation of adult-like, precise memories for events.

Tony Fong: Automated Home-Cages for High-Throughput Assessments of Rodent Behaviors
2024-11-29 15:00 - 16:00 (America/Vancouver) | DMCBH Room 3402, 2215 Wesbrook Mall, Vancouver, British Columbia, V6T 1Z3, Canada
Join us for the UBC Behavioural Neuroscience Seminars (BNS), a lecture series featuring DMCBH trainees and professors in a casual setting. Talks take place from 3-4 pm every Friday in DMCBH 3402A-C and on Zoom. RSVP is not required.
This week’s speaker is Tony Fong from the Murphy lab.
Zoom link: https://ubc.zoom.us/j/62773707502?pwd=[REDACTED]
Meeting ID: 627 7370 7502 | Passcode: [REDACTED]
Visit the BNS website to view the full presentation schedule for the term and to subscribe to the mailing list for updates: https://bnsseminar.psych.ubc.ca/

Dr. Fergil Mills: Novel amygdalostriatal circuits for valence and fear
2024-12-06 11:00 - 12:00 (America/Vancouver) | Rudy North Lecture Theatre, Djavad Mowafaghian Centre for Brain Health, 2215 Wesbrook Mall, Vancouver, British Columbia, V6T 1Z3, Canada
Zoom option if unable to attend in person:
Zoom link here (click on “Join a meeting”)
Meeting ID: 91512 289258
Passcode: [REDACTED]

The amygdalostrital transition zone (ASt) is situated at a crossroads between the amygdala and striatum, but its role in motivated behaviors is poorly understood. We have explored the functional role and genetic identity of this structure, and found the first evidence that the ASt encodes negative valence across behavioral timescales and is essential for orchestrating behavioral fear responses.”

Peiran Zhou: Monoaminergic modulation of behavioral inhibition: insights from a novel rodent task
2024-12-06 15:00 - 16:00 (America/Vancouver) | DMCBH Room 3402, 2215 Wesbrook Mall, Vancouver, British Columbia, V6T 1Z3, Canada
Join us for the UBC Behavioural Neuroscience Seminars (BNS), a lecture series featuring DMCBH trainees and professors in a casual setting. Talks take place from 3-4 pm every Friday in DMCBH 3402A-C and on Zoom. RSVP is not required.
This week’s speaker is Peiran Zhou from the Floresco lab.
Zoom link: https://ubc.zoom.us/j/62773707502?pwd=[REDACTED]
Meeting ID: 627 7370 7502 | Passcode: [REDACTED]
Visit the BNS website to view the full presentation schedule for the term and to subscribe to the mailing list for updates: https://bnsseminar.psych.ubc.ca/

Healthy Aging Visual Art Prize: Artists' Night
2025-01-10 16:30 - 18:30 (America/Vancouver) | Djavad Mowafaghian Centre for Brain Health, 2215 Wesbrook Mall, Vancouver, British Columbia, V6T 1Z3, Canada
Join us for an Artists’ Night on January 10th, 2025 to celebrate the incredible submissions of the finalists from over 50 submissions to the Healthy Aging Visual Art Prize! Click here to learn more about the art contest.
This exciting evening will feature an art exhibition, conversation, food, and beverages, culminating in the announcement of the contest winners. Don’t miss this chance to explore artistic representations of “Healthy Human Aging” and connect with the participating artists and community members. This event is free and open to all (UBC-affiliated individuals and members of the public)!
Due to an overwhelming response, registration is at capacity but if you would like to join the waitlist, please email healthy.aging@ubc.ca

Dr. Ami Citri: Cocaine to Volition: A research arc driven by automated behavioral analysis
2025-01-17 11:00 - 12:00 (America/Vancouver) | Rudy North Lecture Theatre, Djavad Mowafaghian Centre for Brain Health, 2215 Wesbrook Mall, Vancouver, British Columbia, V6T 1Z3, Canada
Zoom option if unable to attend in person:
Zoom link here (click on “Join a meeting”)
Meeting ID: 91512 289258
Passcode: [REDACTED]

I will discuss unpublished projects exploring the circuit basis of action selection, describing how in-house development of an automated tool for behavioral annotation modified our research arc. Starting from cocaine-driven stereotypic actions, we are exploring the neural circuit basis of involuntary and spontaneous actions, and developing a framework for studying the neural circuit basis of volition.

Dr. Florian Engert: Focus versus Competence: Attentional Switching in Larval Zebrafish
2025-01-24 11:00 - 12:00 (America/Vancouver) | Rudy North Lecture Theatre, Djavad Mowafaghian Centre for Brain Health, 2215 Wesbrook Mall, Vancouver, British Columbia, V6T 1Z3, Canada
Zoom option if unable to attend in person:
Zoom link here (click on “Join a meeting”)
Meeting ID: 91512 289258
Passcode: [REDACTED]

Decision making strategies in the face of conflicting or uncertain sensory input have been successfully described in many different species. Here we analyze large behavioral datasets of larval zebrafish engaged in a ‘coherent dot’ optomotor assay. We find that animal performance is bimodal and can be separated into two ‘states’, an engaged state where performance is high and fish consistently turn into the direction of the coherent motion, and a second, disengaged state, where performance drops to chance. We find that a simple HMM is sufficient to model these transitions and fits our experimental data well. We find that this addition can be incorporated into an existing DDM framework that has previously been used to model perceptual decision making in larval zebrafish. Further, we leverage the large behavioral data sets to fit a mixture model of performance distributions and extract two latent variables which we term ‘focus’ and ‘competence’. Whereas ‘competence’ quantifies performance while the fish is in the engaged state, the ‘focus’ variable captures the relative duration for which each animal persists in the engaged state. We show that ‘focus’ may be largely inherited from the parents, while ‘competence’ is more likely to be influenced by environmental context. This quantitative framework for analyzing decision making can be used to screen genetic perturbations for their impact on these two aspects of performance, and potentially help to identify a genetic basis, and a neural mechanism for attention, that extends across organisms.

From idea into action: implementation of Road to Recovery at St. Paul’s Hospital and 1-year findings
2025-01-27 15:30 - 17:00 (America/Vancouver) | DMCBH Room 3402, 2215 Wesbrook Mall, Vancouver, British Columbia, V6T 1Z3, Canada
This month, Dr. Seonaid Nolan and Dr. Brittany Dennis, from BCCSU and UBC will present “From idea into action: implementation of Road to Recovery at St. Paul’s Hospital and 1-year findings.”
Zoom link if unable to attend in person:
https://ubc.zoom.us/j/5936706150?pwd=[REDACTED]
Meeting ID: 593 670 6150
Passcode: [REDACTED]

UBC Kickstart Updates
2025-01-31 11:00 - 12:00 (America/Vancouver) | Rudy North Lecture Theatre, Djavad Mowafaghian Centre for Brain Health, 2215 Wesbrook Mall, Vancouver, British Columbia, V6T 1Z3, Canada
Zoom option if unable to attend in person:
Zoom link here (click on “Join a meeting”)
Meeting ID: 91512 289258
Passcode: [REDACTED]
