Brain

Pierre Baldi, Ph.D. - NEW DATE
2023-03-21 11:00 - 12:00 (America/Los_Angeles) | CNLM Herklotz Conference Center and Virtually via Zoom
CNLM Colloquium UCI Spotlight Series
Join the CNLM in a hybrid colloquium featuring Dr. Pierre Baldi, Distinguished Professor in the Department of Computer Science and Director of the Institute for Genomics and Bioinformatics at UC Irvine.
This event will be held in-person in the Herklotz Conference Center and virtually via Zoom.

The quest for how the brain learns

We will first showcase two cutting-edge applications of modern Artificial Intelligence (AI) in biomedical imaging and in reasoning. These applications, as well as most modern AI applications (e.g., ChatGPT, AlphaFold, AlphaGO, Google Translate, Self-Driving Cars) are based on deep learning, a modern rebranding of neural networks, or connectionist methods, dating back to the 1980s, or even the 1950s. We will then briefly review the neuroscience-inspired, tortuous, historical path that has led to deep learning, and the key discoveries made along the way, highlighting the synergies and discrepancies between neuroscience and deep learning. One key conclusion is that approximate gradient descent is essential for learning. However, the standard gradient descent algorithm of deep learning called backpropagation is not biologically-plausible for multiple reasons. We will examine these reasons one-by-one and identify biologically-plausible solutions for each one of them. In particular, we will introduce and demonstrate a general class of neural architectures and learning algorithms capable of learning from data in a largely unsupervised and asynchronous manner, without the need for symmetric connectivity.

Kevin T. Beier, Ph.D.
2023-03-28 11:00 - 12:00 | CNLM Herklotz Conference Center and Virtually via Zoom
CNLM Colloquium UCI Spotlight Series
Join the CNLM in a hybrid colloquium featuring Dr. Kevin T. Beier, Assistant Professor of Physiology and Biophysics at UC Irvine.
Molecular mechanisms of memory stability and the molecular and circuit determinants of cocaine addiction

Description:
I will speak on two separate projects in our lab. First, we have uncovered the molecular mechanism by which administration of the Zeta Inhibitory Peptide (ZIP) causes memory loss. While it was previously believed that ZIP administration perturbs memory stability through disruption of constitutive kinase activity, recent studies have cast doubt on this hypothesis. However, ZIP’s effects on memory stability are robust, raising the question of what the actual mechanism is by which ZIP exerts its function. We have identified the basic molecular and pathways engaged by ZIP, and use this information to identify an inhibitor that, together with ZIP, enables bidirectional modulation of synaptic plasticity. Second, we are exploring the biological factors that influence the behavioral response to the administration of drugs of abuse. Some individuals that take drugs of abuse are susceptible to developing dependence, while others are resilient. The fundamental source of this variation is not understood. We will discuss our work implicating circuit- and molecular-level changes in the globus pallidus that facilitate individual differences in response to cocaine administration, and share the identification of a novel small molecule compound, isolated from rosemary, that blunts drug reward and volitional intake.
This event will be held in-person in the Herklotz Conference Center and virtually via Zoom.

Megan Peters, Ph.D.
2023-04-04 11:00 - 12:00 | CNLM Herklotz Conference Center and Virtually via Zoom
CNLM Colloquium UCI Spotlight Series
Join the CNLM in a hybrid colloquium featuring Dr. Megan Peters, Assistant Professor of Cognitive Science at UC Irvine.
Neurocomputational approaches to the study of perceptual awareness
Description: When our brains process sensory information, they transform it into a coherent, conscious experience that we use to drive adaptive decisions and learning. In this talk I will describe several ongoing lines of research in my group that focus on understanding the neural and computational substrates of our subjective sense of the world around us. Specifically, separating the study of phenomenology from the study of signal processing capacity is challenging, so our group has been focusing on how the study of metacognitive evaluation (confidence judgements in our perceptual decisions) may shine light on these processes. Using a combination of behavior/psychophysics, computational modeling, noninvasive neuroimaging, and machine learning in humans, we seek to understand how the brain is capable of efficiently using sensory information and how this ability relates to our qualitative, phenomenal experiences.
This event will be held in-person in the Herklotz Conference Center and virtually via Zoom.

Stefan Pinter, PhD.
2023-04-07 11:00 - 12:00 | Zoom, Irvine, CA, 92697, United States
Please join the UCI Center for Aging Research in Down Syndrome for their seminar series featuring Stefan Pinter, PhD. Friday, April 7th virtually on zoom.

The Havana Syndrome: A Disorder of Neuropolitics?
2023-04-19 17:00 | Virtual Event
In one of the most extraordinary cases in the history of science, the mating calls of insects were mistaken for a “sonic weapon” that led to a major diplomatic row. The lecture will trace the origins of the syndrome, the response of the U.S. government, the results of scientific investigations and opinions, the evolution of the syndrome over time and similar phenomena that have occurred in the past.
Robert W. Baloh, MD is Professor of Neurology and Head and Neck Surgery (Emeritus) at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA. Author of 14 books and more than 350 articles in peer-reviewed journals, he is a pioneer in the study of the vestibular system and clinical neurotology. He has a recent book on Havana Syndrome co-authored with Robert Bartholomew, a sociologist from New Zealand. Two other recent books are: “Medically Unexplained Symptoms” and “Exercise and the Brain”.

James L. McGaugh Distinguished Seminar Series with Dr. Elizabeth Gould
2023-04-25 11:00 - 12:00 | CNLM Herklotz Conference Center, Irvine, CA, 92697, United States
Sex differences in early life adversity effects on hippocampal plasticity

Dr. Elizabeth Gould
Department of Psychology
Princeton Neuroscience Institute
Hybrid Event
This seminar will be live-streamed via Zoom and In-Person.
In-Person:
Herklotz Conference Room
Center for the Neurobiology of Learning and Memory
300 Qureshey Research Lab
RSVP for Zoom Link
Abstract:
Early life adversity (ELA) increases the likelihood of neuropsychiatric disease, including anxiety and mood disorders. Sex differences exist in the incidence of these conditions, and types of ELA are known to produce differential vulnerabilities. My talk will focus on our efforts to use two different mouse models of ELA to explore plasticity mechanisms underlying sex differences in behavioral outcomes. We found that an ELA model of neglect, but not one of abuse, increases ventral hippocampal-dependent avoidance behavior in both males and females. Overall, females exhibit greater avoidance than males, with further increases observed after ELA only during the diestrus phase of the estrous cycle. Increases in avoidance in ELA females during diestrus are likely related to diminished conversion of progesterone to the neurosteroid allopregnanolone in the ventral hippocampus. These changes are coincident with increased power of theta oscillations and altered composition of perineuronal nets, extracellular matrix structures known to limit plasticity, around parvalbumin-positive inhibitory interneurons. Sex differences are also observed in response to two types of ELA on social recognition, another function that involves the hippocampus. Males, but not females, show deficits in social memory after exposure to ELA models of neglect or abuse. Despite these similarities within males, underlying mechanisms differ depending on the type of ELA experienced. ELA-neglect reduced the number of stem cells and adult-born neurons in the hippocampus. This effect seems causally linked to social recognition deficits because chemogenetic stimulation of adult-born neurons in ELA-neglect mice restores this function. By contrast, ELA-abuse does not affect the number of adult-born neurons but increases perineuronal nets in the CA2 region. Collectively, these findings highlight how sex and ELA type are important determinants of hippocampal plasticity and behavioral outcomes.
For more information please check out: https://gouldlab.princeton.edu/

LEARNMEM2023
2023-04-26 08:00 - 2023-04-30 17:00 | Waterfront Beach Resort, 21100 Pacific Coast Highway, Huntington Beach, CA, 92648, United States
Join the Center for the Neurobiology of Learning and Memory for the 2023 International Conference on Learning and Memory (LEARNMEM™2023) on April 26-30, 2023 in Huntington Beach, CA. The Conference will be held in celebration of the 40th Anniversary of the Center for the Neurobiology of Learning and Memory (CNLM).
LEARNMEM™2023 will feature keynote talks by distinguished speakers, scientific symposia, lightning talks, open papers, poster sessions as well as professional development and networking opportunities.
The conference will have a substantial impact on the field by accelerating the pace of team science and providing a unique networking opportunity for the next generation of leaders in neuroscience.

BME Distinguished Speaker Series, 12pm-1pm on May 5, 2023: "Real-Time, Phase-Dependent Reactivation of Memories in the Mammalian Brain"
2023-05-05 12:00 - 13:00 | McDonnell Douglas Engineering Auditorium, 314 Los Trancos Drive, Irvine, CA, 92697, United States
Join us May 5th, 2023 – BME Distinguished Speaker Seminar
Time: 12:00 – 1:00 p.m.
Location: McDonnell Douglas Engineering Auditorium
– Distinguished Speaker Reception –
Baja Fresh, beer, wine and soda
Time: 4:00 – 5:00 p.m.
Location: Natural Sciences II, 3rd floor lobby

Laura Ewell, Ph.D.
2023-05-09 11:00 - 12:00 | CNLM Herklotz Conference Center and Virtually via Zoom
CNLM Colloquium UCI Spotlight Series
Join the CNLM in a hybrid colloquium featuring Dr. Laura Ewell, Assistant Professor of Anatomy and Neurobiology at UC Irvine.
Sparse to dense networks: pattern separation and completion in health and epilepsy.
Description: The attractor theory of memory posits that CA3, the recurrent network at the core of the hippocampus, is capable of learning, storing, and recalling ensembles of neurons that represent experience. In healthy conditions there are constraints on the CA3 network that ensure that individual neural patterns comprise a small group of neurons that do not overlap with other patterns. One critical constraint called pattern separation works at the network level – and is thought to be performed by the dentate gyrus. In this talk, I will be examining the network processes of pattern separation and pattern completion through the lens of temporal lobe epilepsy – a disease in which network codes shift from sparse to dense schemes. We will discuss single unit data from freely moving rodents (epilepsy models and healthy animals) and new tasks being developed by my laboratory to study these critical memory processes.
This event will be held in-person in the Herklotz Conference Center and virtually via Zoom.

Frank M. Longo, M.D., PhD.
2023-05-10 16:00 - 17:00 | Tamkin Hall, Room F110, 831 Health Sciences Rd, Irvine, CA, 92697, United States
The MSTP Distinguished Lecture Series is excited to announce our next speaker, Dr. Frank Longo, on Wednesday, May 10th, 2023 from 4-5 PM PT. Dr. Longo is Chair of the Department of Neurology and Neurological Sciences at Stanford School of Medicine. Dr. Longo’s research focuses on neurodegenerative disease, with an emphasis on translation and the development of novel therapeutics. Please see the details and registration link for this hybrid lecture below.

Talk Title: From Lab to Clinic to Lab and Creating Novel Small Molecule Approaches for Alzheimer’s and Other Neurodegenerative Diseases

When: Wednesday, May 10th, 2023, 4-5pm

Where: Tamkin Hall, Room F110, with reception to follow
Please note the new location in Tamkin Hall, Room F110.

MSTP Distinguished Lecture Series - Dr. Vivianne Tawfik (05/19/23 @ 4PM in Tamkin F110)
2023-05-19 16:00 - 17:00 | Tamkin Hall, Room F110, 831 Health Sciences Rd, Irvine, CA, 92697, United States
Vivianne L. Tawfik, MD, PhD
Associate Professor
Director of the Fellowship in Anesthesia Research and Medicine (FARM) program
Department of Anesthesiology, Perioperative and Pain Medicine
Stanford University School of Medicine

Neuroimmune Interactions In Chronic Pain:
From Clinical to Clinically-Informed Basic Science
Friday, May 19, 2023
4:00 – 5:00 p.m. PT
Hybrid
In-person: Tamkin 110
& Telecast: Via Zoom

REGISTER

Organized by: MSTP students, Jacob Deyell, John Hong, May Hui, Cassie Kooiker, Sarah O’Dell, Yueqi Ren, Eli Soyfer, Laura Williamson and Celina Yang
Co-Sponsored by: UCI Department of Anesthesiology & Perioperative Care
Event Contact: May Hui | mayh1@uci.edu

Health and Wellbeing Day 2023
2023-05-20 11:00 - 14:00 | CA
You’re invited to Health & Wellbeing Day!
Come listen to panelists share their expertise in how to prioritize your health & mental wellbeing through biology.

May 20, 2023
Talks: 11 a.m. to 2 p.m.
Luncheon Mixer: 2 p.m. to 4 p.m.

Register

Agenda
The Mind-Body Connection in the Neuroscience of Wellbeing (John Guzowski, PhD, Neurobiology & Behavior, BioSci)
Exercise (Jim Hicks, PhD, Ecology & Evolutionary Biology, BioSci)
Sleep (Bryce Mander, PhD, Psychiatry & Human Behavior; UCI SOM)
Diet-Gut-Microbiome (Katrine Whiteson, PhD, Molecular Biology & Biochemistry, BioSci)
Psychological Pillars of Wellbeing (Joel Milam, PhD, Epidemiology & Biostatistics; Public Health)
A Neuroscience Framework for Psychological Wellbeing (Golnaz Tabibnia, PhD; Psychology; Social Ecology)
Open Panel Discussion / Student Q & A (all speakers, Beth England-Mackie, and Meladee Garst, PhD)

Panelists

John Guzowski, PhD
Neurobiology & Behavior
BioSci

Jim Hicks, PhD
Ecology & Evolutionary Biology
BioSci

Bryce Mander, PhD
Psychiatry & Human Behavior;
School of Medicine

Katrine Whiteson, PhD
Molecular Biology & Biochemistry, BioSci

Joel Milam, PhD
Epidemiology & Biostatistics;
Public Health

Golnaz Tabibnia, PhD
Psychology;
Social Ecology

Beth England-Mackie
Assistant Director
Student Wellness &
Health Promotion

Meladee Garst, PhD
Assistant Director/Director
Director of Student Educational
Program & Outreach

Register

If you have any questions,
please contact Lauren Morales at
biosci-events@uci.edu.

Leslie Thompson, Ph.D.
2023-05-23 11:00 - 12:00 | CNLM Herklotz Conference Center and Virtually via Zoom
CNLM Colloquium UCI Spotlight Series
Join the CNLM in a hybrid colloquium featuring Dr. Leslie Thompson, Professor of Psychiatry & Human Behavior at UC Irvine.
Huntington’s disease research and therapeutics; the long winding road
Huntington’s disease is a devastating neurodegenerative disease that typically strikes in the prime of life with no disease modifying treatment. It is caused by a repeat expansion within the coding region of the protein Huntingtin which is expressed throughout the body and is required for a vast array of cellular processes. The disease mutation causes both a gain of function and loss of normal function which adds significant complexity to understanding disease mechanisms and advancing therapeutics. In this talk I will describe three vignettes relating to disease mechanisms and therapeutic approaches undertaken in the laboratory.
This event will be held in-person in the Herklotz Conference Center and virtually via Zoom.

2023 CNLM Award Ceremony
2023-05-25 15:00 - 17:00 | CNLM Herklotz Conference Center, Irvine, CA, 92697, United States
Join the Center for the Neurobiology of Learning and Memory (CNLM) for the 2023 CNLM Awards Ceremony.
The CNLM offers awards to exceptional postdoctoral researchers, graduate trainees, undergraduates students, and faculty. Awardees will be presented with a plaque and $1,000 stipend and will be invited to present their work in brief Elevator Pitch format to the UCI academic community and the public at our annual CNLM Awards Ceremony.
Applications for the 2023 CNLM Awards are due May 3rd.

For more information, please visit: https://cnlm.uci.edu/awards/

UCI CFAR-DS Seminar Series - Dr. Beau Ances
2023-05-26 11:00 - 12:00 | CNLM Herklotz Conference Center, Irvine, CA, 92697, United States
Please join us for the UCI Center for Aging Research in Down Syndrome (CFAR-DS) Seminar Series on May 26 at 11 am PT. We are thankful to have Dr. Beau Ances from Washington University in St. Louis visiting the University of California, Irvine for this seminar. Over the past 15 years, the Ances Bioimaging Laboratory (ABL) has focused on developing novel biomarkers for neurodegenerative diseases including HIV associated neurocognitive disorders (HAND), Alzheimer’s disease (AD), autoimmune encephalitis, and Down syndrome. Dr. Ances will give a talk titled “Alzheimer Disease in Down Syndrome: One extra chromosome, two extra hugs.” The presentation will be held in the Herklotz Conference Room but if you are not able to make it to the UCI campus, you can attend through Zoom.

Natalie E. Zlebnik – ICAN Seminar Series
2023-06-01 11:00 - 12:00 | CNLM Herklotz Conference Center and Virtually via Zoom
ICAN Seminar Series
Thursday, June 1, 2023 at 11:00am
The seminar will be live streamed via Zoom and In-Person.
ZOOM LINK HERE

Natalie E. Zlebnik, PhD
Division of Biomedical Sciences, University of California, Riverside School of Medicine
“Adolescent cannabinoid exposure: effects on dopamine system development and cocaine-motivated behavior”
Abstract: Cannabis is the most commonly abused illicit drug among adolescents, and excessive use in this population is associated with the development of psychiatric conditions, including drug addiction. Adolescence is a critical period for the refinement and organization of neuronal connectivity, especially within the mesocorticolimbic dopamine circuity. In particular, dysregulation of the guidance cue receptor, Dcc, in ventral tegmental area (VTA) dopamine neurons disrupts spatiotemporal targeting of dopamine axons to the nucleus accumbens (NAc) and the medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC). We have previously demonstrated that exposure to amphetamine in early adolescence disrupts the development of dopamine circuitry development, leading to alterations in cognitive processing and drug seeking in adulthood. Here, we examine whether exposure to the synthetic cannabinoid 1 receptor (CB1R) agonist WIN-55,212-2 (WIN) in early adolescence regulates Dcc mRNA expression in the VTA and induces alterations in drug-motivated behaviors and in dopamine function in adulthood. Preliminary findings demonstrate that adolescent exposure to WIN downregulates the Dcc receptor in the VTA and disrupts organization of mesocorticolimbic dopamine circuitry. Additionally, WIN-treated mice display aberrant self-administration of cocaine in the absence of other behavioral impairments. Ongoing experiments will elucidate functional changes in cocaine-evoked phasic dopamine release in the NAc and mPFC. Overall, these findings support that repeated exposure to a CB1R agonist in adolescence impacts mesocorticolimbic dopamine system maturation and may have important implications for dopamine-mediated learning and psychostimulant-motivated behavior later in life.
Bio: Natalie Zlebnik, PhD, is an Assistant Professor in the Division of Biomedical Sciences in the School of Medicine. She earned her doctorate in Neuroscience from the University of Minnesota, and her postdoctoral fellowship was completed at the University of Maryland School of Medicine, where her investigations focused on the role of the endocannabinoid system in normal reward-motivated behaviors and its therapeutic role in disorders of reward seeking. Her independent research program examines how drugs of abuse exploit neural mechanisms of motivated behavior to promote relapse and facilitate the transition to drug addiction. The goal is to identify molecular and circuit-level targets for the development of novel therapeutics to reduce drug craving and minimize the propensity to relapse.

Hiruy Meharena, PhD. - UCI Center for Aging Research in Down Syndrome (CFAR-DS) Seminar Series
2023-06-30 11:00 - 12:00 | Zoom, Irvine, CA, 92697, United States
Please join us for the UCI Center for Aging Research in Down Syndrome (CFAR-DS) Seminar Series on Friday, June 30 at 11 am Pacific Time
Hiruy Meharena, PhD is an Assistant Professor in the Departments of Neurobiology and Molecular Biology in the School of Biological Sciences at UC San Diego. Hiruy’s group focuses on understanding how the brain develops at the molecular and cellular level to accomplish cognitive tasks. The overarching goal is to establish a comprehensive molecular map of the developing human brain in order to identify the cell-type specific gene-networks driving neurodevelopmental disorders associated with intellectual disability, including Autism Spectrum Disorder and Down syndrome. Mouse models and human derived induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs) are utilized to decode the genomic and molecular signatures of intellectual disability during neurodevelopment and cognitive processing.
Please register here and you will be emailed the event details.

Read Montague, Ph.D.
2023-07-11 16:00 - 17:00 | Plumwood House, 1003 Health Sciences Rd, Irvine, CA 92617, Irvine, CA, 92697, United States
Reinforcement Learning, Monoamines and the effort to connect neurochemical dynamics to Human Perception

Join the Conte Center @ UCI for their seminar series featuring Dr. Read Montague, Virginia Tech Carilion Vernon Mountcastle Research Professor and director of the Center for Human Neuroscience Research at the Franlin Biomedical Research Institute.

Register Today – Annual Alzheimer’s Disease Research Conference: Sex and Gender in Dementia Research and Care
2023-08-25 08:00 - 15:15 | Hilton Irvine and Virtual, 18800 MacArthur Blvd, Irvine, CA, 92612, United States
Did you know that women are at an increased risk of developing Alzheimer’s disease?

Attend the Annual Southern California Alzheimer’s Disease Research Conference to learn more about this and other important topics related to sex and gender in dementia research and care. The event is hosted by UCI MIND, Alzheimer’s Orange County and the Alzheimer’s Association Orange County Chapter.

About the Conference

Friday, August 25, 2023, 8:00 am – 3:15 pm PT
Hilton Irvine & Virtual
CEUs can be added onto your registration for in-person attendees

Who should attend?

Faculty
Researchers
Students
People living with dementia and their families
Healthcare providers
Senior and social service providers
Anyone interested!

Click here to visit our website to learn more about registration.

Please note that CEUs are offered at a discounted rate this year.

To register for this hybrid event, click the button below.

Register Now

For questions, please call Megan Witbracht at 949-824-9896.

Down Syndrome Showcase
2023-09-09 15:00 - 18:00 | Irvine Barclay Theater, 4242 Campus Drive, Irvine, CA, 92612, United States
A celebration of the creative and artistic talents of children and adults with Down Syndrome and an opportunity to learn about the factors that impact the health and well-being of people with Down Syndrome
Talent Show and Art Exhibits: Anyone with Down syndrome who would like to perform on stage or display their art/crafts should contactcoordinator@dsaoc.org. Sign-ups are on a first-come, first-served basis.
Poster Presentations: Any UCI student or scholar interested in presenting their scientific findings related to Down syndrome should contact ndiprosp@uci.edu.
Admission and parking: Free. Every guest, performer, and exhibitor must have a ticket. Order through the theater box office: www.thebarclay.org.
For more information: Visit cfar-ds.uci.edu or e-mail: cfar-ds@uci.edu
Light refreshments will be served.

UCI Conte Center Seminar Series with Alexander Shackman, PhD
2023-09-19 16:00 - 17:00 | Plumwood/Showa Denko Lecture Hall
Please joint the Conte Center for a lecture from Alexander Shackman, PhD, Associate Professor, Department of Psychology, University of Maryland.
Date: September 19, 2023, Time: 4:00 – 5:00PM (PT)
Title: The Nature and Neurobiology of Anxiety
Location: Plumwood House (Across From Medical Education) and also Telecast via Zoom, passcode: [REDACTED]
Please reach out to James Weinstock if you have any questions (jweinsto@uci.edu).

2023 Inaugural Symposium for the UCI Center for Neurotherapeutics
2023-10-06 08:00 - 18:00 | Beckman Center of the National Academies of Sciences & Engineering, 100 Academy Wy, Irvine, CA, 92617, United States
Dr. Al La Spada, Director, and Dr. Rob Spitale, Associate Director, of the UCI Center for Neurotherapeutics are delighted to announce our upcoming Inaugural Symposium: “Exploring the Future of Neurotherapeutics”
The goals of the Inaugural Symposium are as follows:

Introduce the center to campus. Learn about the vision that drives us, the milestones we’ve achieved, and our ongoing goals to further develop the center on campus.
An update on state-of-the-art translational neuroscience research. Internationally renowned faculty will delineate ongoing efforts to understand the complexities of the human brain and develop innovative models and solutions for neurological diseases.Lecture topics will include therapeutic drug discovery and high-throughput methods to identify novel drug targets. Experts from diverse disciplines will explain how they are tackling the challenge of delivering small molecules and biological agents across the blood-brain barrier.
Spurring interdisciplinary collaboration across campus. One of the core values at the UCI Center for Neurotherapeutics is collaboration, especially between faculty in the physical sciences and the biological sciences.This unique occasion will be a forum to highlight opportunities for cross-disciplinary interactions and explore potential collaborations. By combining our expertise and diverse perspectives, we can unlock new avenues of discovery and accelerate progress toward developing novel solutions for therapy development.

Our exceptional line-up of guest speakers and UCI faculty speakers include:

Christopher Austin (former Director of NCATS)
Michael Lin (Stanford University)
Julia Schaletzky (UC Berkeley)
Randy Ashton (University of Wisconsin)
Anne Bang (Sanford-Burnham-Prebys Medical Research Institute)
Viviana Gradinaru (California Institute of Technology)
Alexandre Chan (UC Irvine)
Brian Paegel (UC Irvine)
Szu Wang (UC Irvine)
Errol Arkilic (UC Irvine)

Whether you are a student, postdoctoral trainee, faculty member, or staff member, we encourage you to join us, so please mark your calendars!

AI & Biomedicine Symposium: AI and Neuroscience
2023-10-09 09:30 - 19:00 | Calit2 Auditorium, 4100 Calit2 Building, Irvine, Irvine
This year’s annual Southern California AI and Biomedicine Symposium will focus on AI and Neuroscience. The event is co-sponsored by the UCI Institute for Genomics and Bioinformatics and the UCI Center for the Neurobiology of Learning and Memory. The free event includes a full day of talks, lunch, and reception. RSVP soon as space is limited.
Download Event Flyer

Mayank Mehta, Ph.D.
2023-10-17 11:00 - 12:00 | CNLM Herklotz Conference Center and Virtually via Zoom
CNLM Colloquium Series
Hippocampus 2.0: Three simple rules
Join the Center for the Neurobiology of Learning and Memory (CNLM) for a hybrid event featuring Dr. Mayank Mehta, professor of physics, astronomy, neurology, and neurobiology at UCLA.
This event will be held in-person in the Herklotz Conference Center and virtually via Zoom.

Description:
The hippocampus is implicated in many learning and memory disorders including Alzheimer’s. Dozens of drugs have cured these in mice but failed in humans. Hippocampal neurons in rodents show robust spatial selectivity. Hence, the standard test of hippocampal function in mice is the Morris Water Maze, an allocentric spatial memory task. However, in freely behaving primates, hippocampal neurons show very little spatial selectivity. Further, hippocampal damage in humans causes profound non-spatial, egocentric, episodic memory deficits too, whose neurophysiological analog in rodents is unclear. We propose a novel theory of hippocampal function, Hippocampus 2.0, which can reconcile these long-standing differences and provide several experimental tests of this theory. The results provide a unified framework for probing hippocampal function, which could improve translation of therapies from mice to humans.

Conspiracy Thinking in American Politics
2023-10-20 08:00 - 12:00 | Virtual via Zoom, CA
This Symposium will include the Annual Jerrold Post Lecture on Neuropolitics, given by Keynote Speaker George Marcus. Psychiatrist Jerrold Post, MD (1934-2020), who was Professor of Political Science at George Washington University, was a founder of the field of political psychology and author of many influential books on the psychology of political leadership.

Samuel Barnes Science Discussion UCI Conte Center
2023-10-20 15:00 - 16:00 | Virtual via Zoom, CA
Join Samuel Barnes, PhD for his discussion on “Mechanisms underlying flexible reward learning deficits in rodents” virtually with the UCI Conte Center.
Zoom Link
Passcode: [REDACTED]

Roger Nicoll, M.D.
2023-10-24 11:00 - 12:00 | CNLM Herklotz Conference Center and Virtually via Zoom
Join the Center for the Neurobiology of Learning and Memory (CNLM) and the Department of Anatomy and Neurobiology for a hybrid event featuring Dr. Roger Nicoll, professor of cellular and molecular pharmacology at the University of California, San Francisco.
The Biochemistry of Memory: A (not so) New and Specific Hypothesis
Event is jointly sponsored through the CNLM Colloquium Series and the Anatomy and Neurobiology Seminar Series.
This event will be held in-person in the Herklotz Conference Center and virtually via Zoom.

Description:

CaMKII and long-term potentiation (LTP) were discovered within a decade of each other and have been inextricably intertwined ever since. In 1984 Francis Crick proposed that a memory molecule should possess two properties. First, it should be a multimeric protein with identical subunits that can phosphorylate one another. Second, to address how memories outlast molecular turnover he proposed that naïve unphosphorylated subunits could exchange into the phosphorylated multimer and become phosphorylated. Within two years biochemical studies established that CaMKII satisfied the first prediction. Recent biochemical studies have shown that unphosphorylated CaMKII subunits can exchange into phosphorylated CaMKII multimers, thus satisfying Crick’s second prediction. My talk will focus on linking the biochemical properties of CaMKII to LTP. I will show that the autophosphorylation of CaMKII maintains LTP (memory) by establishing a stable CaMKII/NMDA receptor complex, resulting in the synaptic capture of AMPA receptors. LTP survives the protein turnover of CaMKII, which is complete within 2 weeks, by its phosphorylation of newly synthesized naïve CaMKII molecules.

Effects of Narrative Structure and Agency on Memory
2023-10-25 12:00 - 13:00 | Virtual via Zoom, CA
The Department of Cognitive Sciences’
Colloquia Series presents:
Janice Chen, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor, Department of
Psychological & Brain Sciences
Johns Hopkins University

Effects of narrative structure and agency on memory
The world confronts our senses with a continuous stream of rapidly changing information. Yet, we experience life as a series of episodes or events, and in memory these pieces seem to become even further organized. How do we recall an give structure to this complex information? Recent studies have begun to examine these questions using naturalistic stimuli and behavior: subjects view audiovisual movies or read interactive stories, then freely recount their memories of the events. Within the default network, we find distinct brain activity patterns corresponding to individual events, which reappear during verbal recollection; memories and neural patterns are influenced by the network structure of links between events in the narrative, and these effects are modulated by agency. These observations construct a picture of how the brain supports our ability to comprehend and recall real-world events as they unfold continuously across time.

Aniruddh Patel, Ph.D.
2023-11-08 12:00 - 13:00 | Virtual via Zoom, CA
From the Department of Psychology at Tufts University, Aniruddh Patel, Ph.D. will be presenting “The Biology of the Beat: Motor Contributions to Auditory Cognitive Processing” at The Department of Cognitive Sciences’ Colloquia Series.

Flavio Donato, Ph.D.
2023-11-09 16:00 - 17:00 | Plumwood House, 1003 Health Sciences Rd, Irvine, CA 92617, Irvine, CA, 92697, United States
Conte Center @ UCI Seminar Series
Memory dynamics through the divergent recruitment of developmentally-defined hippocampal traces
Join the Conte Center @ UCI for a seminar by Dr. Flavio Donato, assistant professor of neurobiology at the University of Basel.
