Neuroscientists Talk Shop

Friday, December 6, 2013 In December 2013, The UTSA Neurosciences institute assembled a group of premier biophysicists to discuss "Power Law Dynamics in the Brain."   Recorded after the day's talks, this episode has Charlie Wilson (UTSA) leading the group in covering a wide range of topics on scale-invariant network dynamics as they relate to neural systems, including consideration of criticality and optimality. Participants: Larry Abbott (Columbia University) Jim Bower (Boston University) John Beggs (University of Indiana) Dietmar Plenz (NIMH) Charles Wilson (UTSA) Fidel Santamaria (UTSA) Duration: 35 minutes acknowledgement: JM Tepper for original music.

Thursday, December 5, 2013 Louis  Reichardt (UCSF/Simons Foundation Autism Research Initiative) discusses his techniques driven neuroscience, and his thoughts on moving heading the SFAR). Duration: 35 minutes Discussants:(in alphabetical order) Gerard Beaudoin (Res Asst Prof, UTSA) Gary Gaufo (Assoc Prof, UTSA) Annie Lin (Assoc Prof, UTSA) Charles Wilson (Professor, UTSA) acknowledgement: JM Tepper for original music.

Thursday, November 21, 2013 Lena Ting (Georgia Tech/ Emory) discusses her biomechanical approach for understanding neural control of motor systems. Duration: 42 minutes Discussants:(in alphabetical order) Salma Quraishi (Asst Prof, UTSA) Todd Troyer (Assoc Prof, UTSA) Charles Wilson (Professor, UTSA) acknowledgment: JM Tepper for original music.

Thursday, October 17, 2013 Ellen Lau (University of Maryland) discusses the field of neurolinguistics,  and its approach to neural mechanisms of language.  The group discusses the Wernicke-Geschwind model, and some cognitive scientists' resistance to the idea of prediction as a driving force in language. Duration: 42 minutes Discussants:(in alphabetical order) Salma Quraishi (Asst Prof, UTSA) Todd Troyer (Assoc Prof, UTSA) Nicole Wicha (Asst Prof, UTSA) Charles Wilson (Professor, UTSA) acknowledgement: JM Tepper for original music.

Thursday, September 19, 2013 Ani Patel (Tufts University) discusses the neuroscience of music, and its overlap with language processing networks.  He describes his OPERA  hypothesis, that describes some of the conditions for plasticity in the brain in response to musical training. Duration: 36 minutes Discussants:(in alphabetical order) Bharath Chandrasekaran (Asst Prof, UT Austin) Salma Quraishi (Asst Prof, UTSA) Todd Troyer (Assoc Prof, UTSA) Nicole Wicha (Asst Prof, UTSA) acknowledgment: JM Tepper for original music

Thursday, September 12, 2013 Eric Fortune (NJIT) discusses the neural bases of cooperative behavior in duetting songbird pairs. Duration: 50 minutes Discussants:(in alphabetical order) Salma Quraishi (Asst Prof, UTSA) Todd Troyer (Assoc Prof, UTSA) Charles Wilson (Prof, UTSA) acknowledgment: JM Tepper for original music.

Thursday, September 5, 2013 Cameron  McIntyre (Case Western Reserve) discusses the idea of being able to  "dose" deep brain stimulation (DBS), and how it is now being used to treat neuropsychiatric disorders like depression. Duration: 41 minutes Discussants:(in alphabetical order) Salma Quraishi (Asst Prof, UTSA) Todd Troyer (Assoc Prof, UTSA) Charles Wilson (Prof, UTSA) acknowledgment: JM Tepper for original music.

Daniel Ansari (University of Western Ontario) discusses the new field of Mind,  Brain and Education (sometimes called Neuroeducation) which seeks to bring evidence based practice and empirical calculation into the field of education research and practice.  He also discusses his work on the mathematical organization of the brain. Duration: 46 minutes Discussants:(in alphabetical order) James Bower (Professor, UTHSCSA) Salma Quraishi (Asst Prof, UTSA) Todd Troyer (Assoc Prof, UTSA) Nicole Wicha (Asst Prof, UTSA) Charles Wilson (Prof, UTSA) acknowledgement: JM Tepper for original music. Thursday, April 25, 2013

Thursday, April 18, 2013 Sam Pfaff (HHMI, Salk Institute) discusses the heterogeneity of spinal interneurons, vertebrate neural development, and central pattern generators. Duration: 42 minutes Discussants:(in alphabetical order) Gerard Beaudoin III (Postdoc, UTSA) Gary Gaufo (Assoc Prof, UTSA) Salma Quraishi (Asst Prof, UTSA) Todd Troyer (Assoc Prof, UTSA) Charles Wilson (Prof, UTSA) acknowledgement: JM Tepper for original music.

Thursday, April 11, 2013 Lee Cox (University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign) discusses some of the challenges in investigating thalamic investigation, the contribution of the thalamus to sensory processing, the significance of rhythmicity in thalamocortical systems; the significance of interneuron species and the curiousness of feedforward and recurrent connectivity. Duration: 42 minutes Discussants:(in alphabetical order) Joe Beatty (Postdoc, UTSA) Michael Farries (Postdoc, UTSA) Salma Quraishi (Asst Prof, UTSA) Todd Troyer (Asst Prof, UTSA) Charles Wilson (Prof, UTSA) acknowledgement: JM Tepper for original music.

Thursday, April 4, 2013 Gordon Shepherd (Yale) discusses the idea that all cortical circuitry is based on elaboration of a basic microcircuit.  The group discusses ideas that have shaped the understanding of cortical function, including the cortical column. Duration: 43 minutes Discussants:(in alphabetical order) James Bower (Prof, UTHSCSA) Salma Quraishi (Asst Prof, UTSA) Soomin Song (PhD student, UTSA) Todd Troyer (Asst Prof, UTSA) Charles Wilson (Prof, UTSA) acknowledgement: JM Tepper for original music.

Thursday, March 7, 2013 Russell Poldrack (UT Austin) discusses how cognitive fMRI studies are evolving  from a focus on "blobology" to the new emphasis on data mining methods that focus on network connectivity.  He introduces the idea of phenomics as applied to cognitive phenotypes, and the virtues of data sharing in functional studies of cognition. Duration: 38 minutes Discussants:(in alphabetical order) Salma Quraishi (Asst Prof, UTSA) Fidel Santamaria (Asst Prof, UTSA) Todd Troyer (Asst Prof, UTSA) Nicole Wicha (Asst Prof, UTSA) Charles Wilson (Prof, UTSA) acknowledgement: JM Tepper for original music.

Thursday, February 28, 2013 Julie Kauer (Brown University) discusses her work on plasticity and addiction, specifically her discovery of the potentiation of GABA  synapses (GABA-LTP) on dopamine neurons. The group discusses how acute drugs and stress produce a persistent block of GABA-LTP, and how this  phenomenon might be significant to behavior, addiction and its relevance  to the reward prediction error function of dopamine neurons. Duration: 42 minutes Discussants:(in alphabetical order) Carlos Paladini (Assoc Prof, UTSA) Salma Quraishi (Asst Prof, UTSA) Denard Simmons (PhD student, Paladini Lab UTSA) Todd Troyer (Asst Prof, UTSA) Charles Wilson (Prof, UTSA) acknowledgement: JM Tepper for original music.

Thursday, February 21, 2013 Barbara Finlay (Cornell University) discusses her comparative brain development database, "Translating Time."  She takes questions from the group regarding the significance of comparing developmental events across species, and talks about applying an evo-devo approach to questions of cognition. Duration: 39 minutes Discussants:(in alphabetical order) Gary Gaufo (Assoc Prof, UTSA) Salma Quraishi (Asst Prof, UTSA) Todd Troyer (Asst Prof, UTSA) Nicole Wicha (Asst Prof, UTSA) Charles Wilson (Prof, UTSA) acknowledgement: JM Tepper for original music.

Thursday, February 7, 2013 Jocubas Ziburkus (University of Houston) talks about in vitro models of epilepsy, both pharmacological and genetic, and the role of inhibitory interneurons and neuromodulators in seizure mechanics. Duration: 53 minutes Discussants:(in alphabetical order) Salma Quraishi (Asst Prof, UTSA) Todd Troyer (Asst Prof, UTSA) Charles Wilson (Prof, UTSA) acknowledgement: JM Tepper for original music.

Thursday, January 31, 2013 William Armstrong (University of Tennessee Health Sciences Center) talks about developing the intracellular biocytin labeling technique.  This is a follow up to our 2008 talk with Bill (episode 15), when he told us about functional studies of neurosecretary cells of the supraoptic and paraventricular nuclei of the hypothalamus. Duration: 53 minutes Discussants:(in alphabetical order) Salma Quraishi (Res Asst Prof, UTSA) Todd Troyer (Asst Prof, UTSA) Nicole Wicha (Asst Prof, UTSA) Charles Wilson (Prof, UTSA) acknowledgement: JM Tepper for original music.

Thursday, November 15, 2012 Simon Giszter (Drexel School of Medicine) discusses spinal cord modularity based on the idea of motor primitives as optimization learning constraints that can be flexibly modulated by cortical inputs.  He discusses ideas about the origins of motor primitives (are they built by evolution at the level of the species or online at the level of the task for individuals), and describes possible neural mechanisms for how spinal primitives may be orchestrated. Duration: 34 minutes Discussants:(in alphabetical order) Salma Quraishi (Res Asst Prof, UTSA) Todd Troyer (Asst Prof, UTSA) Charles Wilson (Prof, UTSA) acknowledgement: JM Tepper for original music.

Thursday, September 27, 2012 Mark Laubach (Yale School of Medicine) discusses mouse frontal cortex as a model for human frontal cortical function.  He talks about the anterior cingulate cortex as an area in the context of performance monitoring and adaptive control. Duration: 29 minutes Discussants:(in alphabetical order) Carlos Paladini (Assoc Prof, UTSA) Salma Quraishi (Res Asst Prof, UTSA) Todd Troyer (Asst Prof, UTSA) Charles Wilson (Prof, UTSA) acknowledgement: JM Tepper for original music.

Thursday, September 20, 2012 Barry Connors (Brown University) talks about the historical timeline of research on electrical synapses.  He discusses his experimental  exploration of synchrony in cortical interneurons and considers theoretical models of weakly coupled oscillators. Duration: 46 minutes Discussants:(in alphabetical order) Joseph Beatty (Postdoctoral Fellow, UTSA) Salma Quraishi (Res Asst Prof, UTSA) Todd Troyer (Asst Prof, UTSA) Charles Wilson (Prof, UTSA) acknowledgement: JM Tepper for original music.

Thursday, April 26, 2012 Anastassios Tzingounis (University of CT) discusses the mysterious slow after-hyperpolarization current, and talks about a candidate component mechanism he has described that involves the calcium sensor hippocalcin.  He also discusses how he is using atomic force microscopy to map changing distributions of ion channels on living cells. Duration: 39 minutes Discussants:(in alphabetical order) Carlos Paladini (Assoc Prof, UTSA) Salma Quraishi (Res Asst Prof, UTSA) Fidel Santamaria (Asst Prof, UTSA) Todd Troyer (Asst Prof, UTSA) Charles Wilson (Prof, UTSA) acknowledgement: JM Tepper for original music.