Neuroscientists Talk Shop

On February 16, 2023 we got a chance to chat with Rakez Kayed on the tau protein, the key constituent in neurofibrillary tangles that are seen in the brain in Alzheimer's disease, and present in many other kinds of neurodegeneration.  He answered our questions about what tau protein is, how it is changed in neurodegenerative diseases, and what might be done about it.

Guest:  

Rakez Kayed, Professor in the Department of Neurology and the George and Cynthia Mitchell Center for Neurodegenerative Diseases University of Texas Medical Branch, Galveston Texas.

Participating: 

George Perry, Department of Neuroscience, Developmental and Regenerative Biology, UTSA

Host: 

Charles Wilson, Department of Neuroscience, Developmental and Regenerative Biology, UTSA

On December 1, 2022, we got the opportunity to talk to Shannon Macauley about the multiplicity of causes and effects in the etiology of Alzheimers Disease, and her experimental work on the contributions of sleep patterns, age, blood and brain glucose and lactate, and insulin. 

Guest:

Shannon Macauley, Associate Professor in the Departments of Physiology and Pharmacology, and the Sticht Center for Healthy Aging and Alzheimer's Prevention, at Wake Forest University School of Medicine.

Participating:

Melanie Carless, Department of Neuroscience, Developmental and Regenerative Biology, UTSA

Uchit Bhaskar, Department of Neuroscience, Developmental and Regenerative Biology, UTSA

Host:

Charles Wilson, Department of Neuroscience, Developmental and Regenerative Biology, UTSA

On November 17, 2022 we talked with Susan Sangha about brain mechanisms of learned fear and safety, and the neural circuits in the amygdala, cerebral cortex and hippocampus that evaluate threat and mediate our responses to it.

Guest:

Susan Sangha, Department of Psychiatry at the Indiana University School of Medicine, Stark Neuroscience Research Institute.

Participating:

Anthony Burgos-Robles, Department of Neuroscience, Developmental and Regenerative Biology, UTSA

Host:

Charles Wilson, Department of Neuroscience, Developmental and Regenerative Biology, UTSA

On November 3rd, 2022 we talked with Harold Zakon about the cells that enable weakly electric fish to generate electric fields around themselves and to use them as a sensory and social communication system.  Harold described the remarkable independent evolution of this capability twice, in the African and in the South American electric fish, and the host of coordinated genetic changes that were required to create this entirely new sensory modality.

Guest

Harold Zakon, Departments of Neuroscience, and Integrative Biology, University of Texas at Austin

Participating

Todd Troyer, Department of Neuroscience, Developmental and Regenerative Biology, UTSA

Host

Charles Wilson, Department of Neuroscience, Developmental and Regenerative Biology, UTSA

On October 27, 2022 we got the opportunity to talk to Michael Scofield about methods used to study the structure and synaptic function of astrocytes, and some of the advances that have resulted from their use, especially for glutamatergic synapses in the cerebral cortex.

Guest: 

Michael Scofield, Departments  of Neuroscience and Anesthesia and Perioperative Medicine at Medical University of South Carolina.

Participating:

Matt Wanat, Department of Neuroscience, Developmental and Regenerative Biology, UTSA

Host: 

Charles Wilson, Department of Neuroscience, Developmental and Regenerative Biology, UTSA

On Thursday, October 20, we held our 13th annual Neuroscience Symposium.  The topic was organoid models of cortical development.  Brain organoids are 3-dimensional tissues grown from pluripotent stem cells. For studying cortical development, the stem cells are cultured under conditions that promote differentiation into cerebral cortex neurons.  The participants in the symposium spoke on the use of organoids as a model to study human cortical development and disorders of development.  

After the symposium, the speakers met for a panel discussion, which was recorded.

Participating:

Jenny Hsieh, Department of Neuroscience, Developmental and Regenerative Biology, UTSA

Giorgia Quadrato, Keck School of Medicine of University of Southern California

Vanesa Nieto-Estevez, Department of Neuroscience, Developmental and Regenerative Biology, UTSA

Fikri Birey, Emory University School of Medicine

Host:

Charles Wilson, Department of Neuroscience, Developmental and Regenerative Biology, UTSA

On October 13, 2022 we sat down to chat with Mel B. Feany about the molecular processes underlying the neuropathology of alpha-synuclein and Parkinson's disease. We focused on her findings implicating the actin cytoskeleton as an intermediary in mitochondrial dysfunction and other cellular mechanisms that contribute to pathology and cell death.

Guest: 

Mel B Feany, Department of Pathology, Division of Neuropathology, Brigham and Women's Hospital and Harvard Medical School.

Participating:

Chris Gamblin, Department of Neuroscience, Developmental and Regenerative Biology, UTSA

Hyoung-gon Lee, Department of Neuroscience, Developmental and Regenerative Biology, UTSA

Host:

Charles Wilson, Department of Neuroscience, Developmental and Regenerative Biology, UTSA

On Thursday, October 6, 2022 we got the opportunity to talk to Nicolas Tritsch about his studies of oscillatory fluctuations in dopamine and acetylcholine measured simultaneously in the striatum during behavior. We started from the technical side of this new experimental technology, but the conversation ranged into the implications of these oscillations for striatal function and learning, and for Parkinson's disease.

Guest: Nicolas Tritsch, Assistant Professor in the Department of Neuroscience & Physiology and the Neuroscience Institute at the New York University School of Medicine.

Participating:

James Jones, Department of Neuroscience, Developmental and Regenerative Biology, UTSA

Host:

Charles Wilson Department of Neuroscience, Developmental and Regenerative Biology, UTSA

On Thursday, September 8, 2022 we were joined by Genaro Coria-Avila, to talk about sexually dimorphic nuclei in the brain, other forms of brain sexual dimorphism, and their relation to sexual behavior.

Guest:

Dr. Genaro Coria-Avila, Genaro is a research scientist at the Brain Research Institute at the Universidad Veracruzana  in Xalapa, Mexico.

Participating:

Fidel Santamaria, Department of Neuroscience, Developmental and Regenerative Biology UTSA

Daniela Monje, Department of Neuroscience, Developmental and Regenerative Biology UTSA

Host:

Charles Wilson, Department of Neuroscience, Developmental and Regenerative Biology UTSA