2024/25 Neuroscience Research Colloquium Schedule

FALL 2024

SEPTEMBER 13 

  • Host: Dr. Doris Doudet
  • Speaker: Dr. Michele Basso
  • Title: Cognition and Movement in Parkinson’s disease
  • Zoom option if unable to attend in person:
  • Zoom link here (click on “Join a meeting”)
  • Meeting ID: 91512 289258
  • Passcode: 289258

In this talk Dr. Basso will review studies in her laboratory exploring the role of cognitive impairment in Parkinson’s disease and the role of the basal ganglia and midbrain circuits in the control of perceptual and memory-based decision-making in health and disease.

SEPTEMBER 20

  • Host: Dr. Kota Mizumoto
  • Speaker: Dr. Peri Kurshan, Albert Einstein College of Medicine
  • Title: Protein-lipid interactions drive presynaptic assembly prior to cell-adhesion molecule recruitment
  • Zoom option if unable to attend in person:
  • Zoom link here (click on “Join a meeting”)
  • Meeting ID: 91512 289258
  • Passcode: 289258

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.

SEPTEMBER 27

  • Host: Dr. Shernaz Bamji
  • Speaker: Dr. Katharine Smith, University of Colorado, Denver
  • Title: TBD
  • Zoom option if unable to attend in person:
  • Zoom link here (click on “Join a meeting”)
  • Meeting ID: 91512 289258
  • Passcode: 289258

OCTOBER 18

  • Host: Drs. Cheryl Wellington and Paul Van Donkelaar
  • Speaker: Dr. Carrie Esopenko, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai
  • Title: TBD
  • Zoom option if unable to attend in person:
  • Zoom link here (click on “Join a meeting”)
  • Meeting ID: 91512 289258
  • Passcode: 289258

OCTOBER 25

  • Host: Dr. Mark Cembrowski
  • Speaker: Dr. Catherine Peña, Princeton University
  • Title: Early life stress primes sensitivity to future stress: from engrams to epigenetics
  • Zoom option if unable to attend in person:
  • Zoom link here (click on “Join a meeting”)
  • Meeting ID: 91512 289258
  • Passcode: 289258

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.

NOVEMBER 1

  • Host: Dr. Lynn Raymond
  • Speaker: Dr. Edmund Au, Columbia University
  • Title: TBD
  • Zoom option if unable to attend in person:
  • Zoom link here (click on “Join a meeting”)
  • Meeting ID: 91512 289258
  • Passcode: 289258

NOVEMBER 15

  • Host: Michael Gordon
  • Speaker: Dr. Anna Phan, University of Alberta
  • Title: TBD
  • Zoom option if unable to attend in person:
  • Zoom link here (click on “Join a meeting”)
  • Meeting ID: 91512 289258
  • Passcode: 289258

NOVEMBER 22

  • Host: Dr. Todd Woodward
  • Speaker: Dr. Sepideh Sadaghiani, University of Illinois
  • Title: TBD
  • Zoom option if unable to attend in person:
  • Zoom link here (click on “Join a meeting”)
  • Meeting ID: 91512 289258
  • Passcode: 289258

NOVEMBER 29

  • Host: Dr. Tim Murphy
  • Speaker: Dr. Paul Frankland, University of Toronto
  • Title: TBD
  • Zoom option if unable to attend in person:
  • Zoom link here (click on “Join a meeting”)
  • Meeting ID: 91512 289258
  • Passcode: 289258

DECEMBER 6  

  • Host: Dr. Shernaz Bamji
  • Speaker: Dr. Fergil Mills, University of Utah
  • Title: TBD
  • Zoom option if unable to attend in person:
  • Zoom link here (click on “Join a meeting”)
  • Meeting ID: 91512 289258
  • Passcode: 289258

TERM 2

(WINTER 2025)

JANUARY 17 – ON HOLD

  • Host: Chris Lamb
  • Speaker: Dr. Tasha Stanton, University of Southern Australia
  • Title: TBD

JANUARY 24

  • Host:  Dr. Doug Altshuler
  • Speaker: Dr. Florian Engert, Harvard University
  • Title: TBD

JANUARY 31

  • Host: Dr. Jason Snyder
  • Speaker: UBC Kickstart Updates
  • Speakers:
  • Dr. Hee Yeon Im
  • Dr. Mark Cembrowski

FEBRUARY 7

  • Host: Dr. Jason Snyder
  • Speaker: UBC Kickstart Updates
  • Speakers:
  • Dr. Douglas Altshuler
  • Dr. Christian Schütz
  • Dr. Manu Madhav

FEBRUARY 14

  • Host: Dr. Annie Ciernia
  • Speaker: Dr. Dorothy Schafer, University of Massachusetts Chan Medical School
  • Title: TBD

FEBRUARY 21

  • Host: Dr. Shernaz Bamji
  • Speaker: Dr. Caroline Menard, Laval University
  • Title: TBD

FEBRUARY 28

  • Host: Dr. Amani Hariri
  • Speaker:  Dr. Boris Heiftes, Stanford University
  • Title: TBD

MARCH 7

  • Host: Lily Aleksandrova
  • Speaker: Dr. Alex Kwan, Cornell University
  • Title: TBD

MARCH 14

  • Host: Dr. Michael Gordon
  • Speaker: Dr. Anita Devineni, Emory University
  • Title: TBD

MARCH 21

  • Host: Dr. Khaled Abdelrahman
  • Speaker: Dr. Graham Collingridge, University of Toronto
  • Title: TBD

MARCH 28

  • Host: Dr. Lynn Raymond
  • Speaker: Dr. Anne Churchland, UCLA
  • Title: TBD

APRIL 4

  • Host:
  • Speaker:
  • Title:

APRIL 11

  • Host: Daniel Ramandi
  • Speaker: Dr. Sandeep Robert Datta, Harvard University
  • Title: TBD

APRIL 25

  • Host: Dr. Mark Cembrowski
  • Speaker: Dr. Simon Chen, University of Ottawa
  • Title: TBD

MAY 2

  • Host: Dr. Corree Laule
  • Speaker: Dr. Sarah Morrow, University of Calgary
  • Title: TBD

MAY 9

  • Host: Dr. Kota Mizumoto
  • Speaker: Dr. Julia Lefebvre, Sickkids- University of Toronto
  • Title: TBD

MAY 16

  • Host:  Dr. Jason Snyder
  • Speaker: Dr. Cheryl Wellington, UBC
  • Title: New CFI funded Core Facility

Dr. Wellington will be introducing a new CFI funded Core Facility that will focus on fluid biomarkers relevant to clinical neurology and fundamental neuroscience.

MAY 23

  • Host: Daniel Ramandi
  • Speaker: Dr. Bence Olveczky – Harvard University
  • Title: TBD

MAY 30

  • Host: Dr. Annie Ciernia
  • Speaker: Dr. Pinar Ayata, City University of New York
  • Title: TBD

JUNE 6

  • Host: Dr. Daniela Palombo
  • Speaker: Dr. Charan Ranganath, University of California at David
  • Title: TBD

JUNE 13

  • Host: Dr. Erin MacMillan
  • Speaker: Dr. Wafaa Zaaraoui, Centre de Résonance Magnétique Biologique et Médicale, Marseille
  • Title: TBD