Neuroscientists Talk Shop

Thursday, January 17, 2019

Sarah C. Woolley (McGill) discusses her work on the neural basis of song preference in female songbirds.  She describes experiments that manipulate in vivo dopaminergic pathways in the auditory system to change song preference.

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, November 1, 2018

Maurice Chacron (McGill) talks about optimal coding mechanisms invoked in sensory perception of the electric fish.  He discusses his “awake behaving” model, through which he has deciphered that feedback from descending inputs tunes sensory responses through a “temporal whitening” function which may be conserved across species.

Duration: 42 minutes

Discussants:(in alphabetical order)

Salma Quraishi (Research Asst Prof, UTSA)

Fidel Santamaria (Assoc Prof, UTSA)

Charles Wilson (Ewing Halsell Chair, UTSA)

acknowledgement: JM Tepper for original music.

Thursday, October 25, 2018

Josh Dudman (HHMI Janelia) discusses his model of how the basal ganglia shape performance based on prior experience by controlling the gain of movement kinematics.  The group considers this history-dependent gain computation model alongside the traditional action selection model.

Duration: 43 minutes

Discussants:(in alphabetical order)

Juan Morales (PhD student, UTSA)

Salma Quraishi (Research Asst Prof, UTSA)

Denard Simmons (Postdoc, UTSA)

Todd Troyer (Assoc Prof, UTSA)

Matt Wanat (Asst Prof, UTSA)

Charles Wilson (Ewing Halsell Chair, UTSA)

acknowledgement: JM Tepper for original music.

Thursday, October 4, 2018

Marisela Morales (NIDA) discusses the anatomical and functional complexity of VTA projections, including the distinctive synaptic architecture of dual GABAergic glutamatergic synapses in the habenula, and the indispensability of electron microscopy for understanding the diversity of brain circuits.

Duration: 43 minutes

Discussants:(in alphabetical order)

Carlos Paladini (Professor, UTSA)

Salma Quraishi (Research Asst Prof, UTSA)

Todd Troyer (Assoc Prof, UTSA)

Matt Wanat (Asst Prof, UTSA)

Charles Wilson (Ewing Halsell Chair, UTSA)

acknowledgement: JM Tepper for original music.

Thursday, September 27, 2018

Chip Gerfen (NIMH) talks about his defining work in describing the input-output organization of the basal ganglia, and how early ideas of pathway-level organization principles have yielded an appreciation of the explosive anatomical and molecular diversity of individual neurons within those pathways.  The group discusses Chip’s new spearheading of single axon anatomical projection mapping in striatum, and what clues it may offer to our understanding of basal ganglia function.

Duration: 42 minutes

Discussants:(in alphabetical order)

Carlos Paladini (Professor, UTSA)

Todd Troyer (Assoc Prof, UTSA)

Charles Wilson (Ewing Halsell Chair, UTSA)

acknowledgement: JM Tepper for original music.