Neuroscientists Talk Shop

Friday, April 24, 2020

Jacques Wadiche (UAB School of Medicine) talks to us about multivesicular neurotransmitter release (MVR) in the CNS. He takes us through recent work from his lab that gets at PKA-dependent molecular regulation of MVR whereby synaptic release depends on the number of docked vesicles available for release upstream of release probability.

Duration: 51 minutes

Discussants:(in alphabetical order)

Matt Higgs (Res Asst Prof, UTSA)

Salma Quraishi (Res Asst Prof, UTSA)

Charles Wilson (Ewing Halsell Chair, UTSA)

acknowledgement: JM Tepper for original music.

Thursday, February 20, 2020

Tim Petros (NICHD/NIH) talks about new single cell RNA and epigenetic approaches to understanding the intrinsic programs that determine interneuron diversity. The group discusses how to determine causation vs correlation in identifying candidate mechanisms that regulate interneuron fate decisions, and how historic concepts of cell type (based on morphology, connectivity, physiology, etc) map onto transcriptomic data clustering.

Duration: 46 minutes

Discussants:(in alphabetical order)

Annie Lin (Assoc Prof, UTSA)

Asif Maroof (Asst Prof, UTSA)

Salma Quraishi (Res Asst Prof, UTSA)

Charles Wilson (Ewing Halsell Chair, UTSA)

acknowledgement: JM Tepper for original music.

Thursday, February 13, 2020

Savio Chan (Northwestern) gives us his thoughts on cell diversity in the external globus pallidus. He weighs in on how to define cell type, when to stop mining for more diversity, and whether cell type may even be a relevant construct in thinking about a network’s function.

In an interesting aside, Charlie bears out how Savio’s work delivers the key functional impact of a GPe-striatal connection that was originally left out of the basal ganglia wiring diagram because it appeared not to fit the direct/indirect pathway dichotomy. The group considers the age-old dilemma of editorializing observations to fit a functional story, landing on the principle, “follow the data!”

Duration: 35 minutes

Discussants:(in alphabetical order)

Salma Quraishi (Res Asst Prof, UTSA)

Todd Troyer (Assoc Prof, UTSA)

Charles Wilson (Ewing Halsell Chair, UTSA)

acknowledgement: JM Tepper for original music.

Thursday, February 6, 2020

Steve Small (UT Dallas) discusses how well 19th and 20th century localizationist metaphors for the brain have served our understanding of behavior, especially in the realm of language, and what new strategies are replacing them in the new millennium.

Duration: 46 minutes

Discussants:(in alphabetical order)

Todd Troyer (Assoc Prof, UTSA)

Nicole Wicha (Prof, UTSA)

Charles Wilson (Ewing Halsell Chair, UTSA)

acknowledgement: JM Tepper for original music.

Thursday, January 23, 2020

Matt van der Meer (Dartmouth) talks about the role of oscillations in routing information flow in the ventral striatum.

Duration: 37 minutes

Discussants:(in alphabetical order)

Francesco Savelli (Assistant Prof, UTSA)

Todd Troyer (Assoc Prof, UTSA)

Charles Wilson (Ewing Halsell Chair, UTSA)

acknowledgement: JM Tepper for original music.