2025/26 Neuroscience Research Colloquium Schedule

FALL 2025

SEPTEMBER 12

• Host:  Daniel Ramandi
• Speaker: Dr. Bence Olevczky, Harvard University
• Title: Neural circuits underlying learned motor sequences.

Our ability to sequence movements and actions in response to unpredictable environmental events underlies our rich and adaptive behavioral repertoire. Such flexible behaviors contrast with overtrained, or automatic, motor sequences directed at specific tasks and executed the same way every time. We probed how neural circuits underlie these distinct forms of motor sequence execution by training rats on a ‘piano task’ in which the same motor sequence can be generated in response to unpredictable cues or overtrained to the point of automaticity. By measuring and manipulating neural activity in motor cortex and sensorimotor striatum, we delineate the logic by which these circuits combine to generate both flexible and automatic motor sequences.

SEPTEMBER 19

• Host:  Dr. Mark Cembrowski
• Speaker: Dr. Matthew Hill, University of Calgary
• Title: Amygdalar Regulation of Neuroendocrine and Behavioral Responses to Threat and Stress

While the basolateral amygdala (BLA)  is known to be a highly stress sensitive region of the brain, there is surprisingly little understanding of the role the BLA plays in the orchestration of a stress response. The first portion of this talk will focus on the role of the BLA in regulating neuroendocrine responses to stress, and how differential projection neuron populations in the BLA are stress sensitive and have diverse anatomical organization. The second arm of this talk will examine the role of the BLA in modulating behavioral responses, in a sex specific manner, to a dynamic threat based environment with a robotic predator.

SEPTEMBER 26

• Host: Dr. Annie Ciernia
• Speaker:  Dr. Adrienne Antonson, University of Illinois
• Title: Blueprint for the Developing Brain: Cues from Microbes, Myeloid Cells, and the Maternal-Fetal Interface

Emerging evidence suggests that key neurodevelopmental processes are shaped by immune and microbial signals during the prenatal period. My work is based on the premise that disruptions to these signals can alter neurodevelopmental trajectories and increase vulnerability to lifelong mental health disorders. Using a clinically translatable mouse model of maternal influenza infection, we demonstrate that prenatal inflammatory insults compromise vascular integrity in both the placenta and fetal brain, allowing bloodborne molecules to cross transplacental and blood-brain barriers. These changes are associated with cortical thinning, altered fetal microglia and meningeal macrophage signaling, and shifts in circulating maternal and fetal microbial metabolites. Together, these findings highlight converging pathways through which maternal inflammation may influence fetal brain development and long-term psychiatric risk.

OCTOBER 3

• Host:  Dr. Mark Cembrowski
• Speaker: Dr. Erik Bloss, The Jackson Laboratory
• Title: Synapse plasticity in learning and disease states

Synapses are the computational subunits of the brain. They allow cell-type specific forms of information flow, permit neurons to compartmentalize electrical and biochemical signals, and undergo rapid structural plasticity during experience. Although Crick suggested spine plasticity was a correlate of memory more than 40 years ago, it has been hard to understand precisely how the plasticity of spines drives cognitive function. We have examined this issue in two contexts: one in which mice are required to learn competing memory traces, and one in which mice are engineered to express mutant amyloid as a model of Alzheimer’s disease (AD). I will present unpublished data that suggest adaptive learning requires spine plasticity in specific cortical neurons, at specific synaptic sites, and in a sex-specific manner. In AD mice, the loss of synapses appears to coincide with interference between memory traces. These results suggest new ways in which plasticity might support memory functions.

OCTOBER 24

• Host: Daniel Ramandi
• Speaker: Dr. Nicolas Tritsch, McGill University
• Title: Dopamine and Movement: Defining Timescales of Modulation

Ever since the discovery that the degeneration of midbrain DA neurons (mDANs) projecting to the striatum underlies bradykinesia (i.e., slowness of movement) in Parkinson’s disease (PD), DA has become synonymous with motor vigor. However, the mechanisms through which DA contributes to the speed and amplitude of individual voluntary movements are still debated. Initial investigations suggested a somewhat slow or permissive role for DA, but recent experiments in rodents proposed a stronger and faster role for DA in the dynamic control of the gain of motor commands. In this presentation, I will describe our attempts at better understanding how dopamine contributes to motor vigor through the study of release patterns, lesions, and optogenetic and pharmacological manipulations. Our findings call into question the widely-held view that phasic fluctuations in extracellular dopamine control the vigor of ongoing movements, constraining the kinds of mechanisms and timescales that dopamine likely acts on to modify behavior.

OCTOBER 31

• Host:  Harjeev Sudan, on behalf of the Neuroscience Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion Committee
• Speaker: Dr. Michael Yellow Bird, University of Manitoba
• Title: The Power of Ceremony: Indigenous Contemplative Practices, Neurodecolonization, and the Medicine Wheel

Indigenous contemplative practices and teachings have enabled Indigenous Peoples to develop an important paradigm of healing that has important implications for western medicine and health care providers who work with Indigenous Peoples. In this presentation, Dr. Michael Yellow Bird uses Indigenous wisdom and western science to show how Indigenous contemplative approaches can create important changes in the brain and body and can prevent, heal, and cure, many emotional and physical diseases brought about by colonization and the current Western industrial lifestyle.

NOVEMBER 7  

• Host: Dr. Corree Laule
• Speaker: Dr. Bruce Pike, University of Calgary
• Title: MRI Guided Transcranial Focused Ultrasound

The integration of MRI and transcranial focused ultrasound represents a disruptive technology that has many potential applications.  This seminar will provide an overview of a new research program I established in this area that has three major research themes: neurosurgery, drug delivery, and neuromodulation.  Methods, applications, and progress in each of these areas will be reviewed and future research opportunities highlighted.

DECEMBER 5

• Host:  Dr. Shernaz Bamji
• Speaker: Dr. Jean-Claude Béique, University of Ottawa
• Title:  A tale of serotonin’s value: from release dynamics to behavioral regulation

Our lab seeks to gain granular descriptions of synaptic, neuronal and network dynamics in the brain. To this end, we use a combination of in vitro and in vivo electrophysiology, two-photon imaging/uncaging, optogenetics and behavioral approaches, and use computational simulations to coalesce these levels of analysis in tractable interpretations. I will present results from ongoing work aimed at identifying unifying roles for the neuromodulator serotonin. I will show data supporting the idea that serotonin neurons located in the raphe encodes an estimate of cumulative future rewards, a quantity referred to as value in reinforcement learning. We further identified unsuspected network organization and serotonin release dynamics in the raphe that, collectively, impart highly non-linearly processing features of long-range synaptic inputs and behavioral regulation. Collectively, this work is beginning to identify elemental computations that may be involved in animal’s ability to optimally adapt their behavioral policies to changing environmental contexts.

TERM 2

(WINTER 2026)

JANUARY 16

• Host:  Dr. Adele Diamond
• Speaker: Dr. Mary Helen Immordino-Yang, University of Southern California
• Title: TBD

JANUARY 23

• Host: Dr. Amani Hariri
• Speaker: Dr. Stephan Lammel, University of California at Berkely
• Title: TBD

JANUARY 30

• Host:  Dr. Jason Snyder
• UBC Kickstart Updates
• Speakers:
• Drs. Annie Ciernia, Sheila Teves and Seth Parker: The role of metabolic driven changes in histone lactylation in regulating microglial inflammation.
• Drs. Deborah Giaschi, Alexander Weber, Hee Yeon-Im, Tamara Vanderwal and Miriam Spering:  New magnetic resonance approaches to understanding developmental visual disorders.
• Drs. Shernaz Bamji and Jacqueline Quandt: Validating ZDHHC9 as a therapeutic target for Multiple Sclerosis.

FEBRUARY 6

• Host: Ava Momeni
• Speaker: Dr. Donna Rose Addis,  University of Toronto
• Title: TBD

FEBRUARY 13

• Host: Dr. Jason Snyder
• UBC Kickstart Updates
• Speakers:
• Drs. Thalia Field and Jill Zwicker: Assessing long-term trajectories of brain structure, neurodevelopment and function in adolescents with complex congenital heart disease.
• Drs. Jason Snyder and Manu Madhav:  Experience-specific tuning of postnatally-born hippocampal neurons.

FEBRUARY 20

• Host:  Dr. Khaled Abdelrahman
• Speaker: Dr. Craig Lindsley, Vanderbilt University
• Title: Allosteric Modulation of M₁: Form Concept to Clinic

This talk will discuss the discovery and development of M1 positive allosteric modulators (PAMs) for the treatment of cognitive dysfunction in schizophrenia and AD.   From a weak and non-selective HTS hit, we developed highly M1 selective in vivo tool compounds that culminate in the discovery of VU0467319, an M₁ PAM clinical candidate that had successfully completed a Phase I Single Ascending Dose clinical trial.  Pharmacokinetic assessment revealed that, in humans upon increasing dose, a circulating, inactive metabolite constituted a major portion of the total drug-related AUC. One approach the team employed to reduce inactive metabolite formation in the back-up program was the kinetic isotope effect, replacing the metabolically labile C-H bonds with shorter, more stable C-D bonds. The C-D dipole afforded VU6045422, a more potent M₁ PAM (human EC₅₀ = 192 nM, 80% ACh Max) than its proteo-congener VU0467319 (human EC₅₀ = 492 nM, 71% ACh Max), and retained the desired profile of minimal M₁ agonism.  Overall, the profile of VU6045422 supported advancement, as did greater in vitro metabolic stability in both microsomes and hepatocytes than VU0467319.  In both rat and dog in vivo, low doses proved to mirror the in vitro profile; however, at higher doses in 14-day exploratory toxicology studies, the amount of the same undesired metabolite derived from VU6045422 was equivalent to that produced from VU0467319.  This unexpected IVIVC result, coupled with less than dose-proportional increases in exposure and no improvement in solubility, led to discontinuation of VU0467319/ VU6045422 development.   Attempts to block metabolism with the incorporation of deuterium atoms proved successful in vitro, and in vivo at low exposures; however, in high-dose toxicology studies, the degree of oxidative metabolism was comparable to the proteo-congener.   Here, we describe a second-generation back-up effort based on the VU0467319 scaffold wherein strategic placement of a tertiary hydroxyl moiety afforded VU6052254, a potent M₁ PAM (EC₅₀ = 59 nM, 79% ACh max), with high CNS exposure (rat K_p = 1.07; K_p,uu = 1.27; P-gp ER = 1.97, P_app = 23 x 10^-6 cm/s), reduced metabolism across species, excellent pharmacodynamic responses (MED in rat NOR = 1 mg/kg PO; MED in rat CFC = 0.3 mg/kg PO), excellent multi-species PK (Cl_ps < 10 mL/min/kg, %F >65) and favorable human PK and dose projections. However, an in vitro CYP₄₅₀ induction liability, confirmed in chronic dosing studies, precluded further development.

FEBRUARY 27

• Host: Dr. Christian Schuetz
• Speaker: Dr. Leah Mayo, University of Calgary
• Title: TBD
• Zoom option if unable to attend in person:

MARCH 6 

• Host: Dr. Doug Altshuler
• Speaker: Dr, Chris Niell, University of Oregon
• Title: TBD

MARCH 13 

• Host: Larissa Kraus
• Speaker: Dr. Keri Martinowich, Johns Hopkins University
• Title: TBD

MARCH 20 

• Host:
• Speaker:
• Title:

MARCH 27

• Host: Dr. Christian Schuetz
• Speaker: Dr. Hamed Ekhtiari, Laureate Institute for Brain Research
• Title:TBD

APRIL 10

• Host:  Dr. Jason Snyder
• Speaker:  Dr. Mark Brandon, The Douglas Research Centre, McGill University
• Title: TBD

APRIL 17 

• Host: Lily Aleksandrova
• Speaker: Dr. Kelly Dunn, University of Maryland
• Title:

APRIL 24 

• Host:  Dr. Manu Madhav
• Speaker: Dr. Jonathan Pillow, Princeton University
• Title: TBD

MAY 1

• Host:  Dr. Rebecca Todd
• Speaker: Dr. Guillaume Dumas, University of Montreal
• Title: TBD

MAY 8

• Host: Dr. Kota Mizumoto
• Speaker: Dr. Kelsie Eichel, University of Colorado, Boulder
• Title: TBD

MAY 29

• Host: Sarah Ebert
• Speaker:  Dr. Jennifer Gommerman, University of Toronto
• Title: TBD

JUNE 5 

• Host:
• Speaker:
• Title: TBD