Neuroscientists Talk Shop

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.

Thursday, November 14, 2019 Stephen Maren (Texas A&M) talks about the common neural circuitry mediating fear conditioning and drug relapse. Duration: 39 minutes Discussants:(in alphabetical order) Isabel Muzzio (Assoc 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, November 7, 2019 Ajay Dhaka (UW) talks about distinctions in itch (pruritis) and pain (nociception) somatosensation, and his discovery of overlapping mechanisms for these sensations via direct activation of different populations of TRP channel-expressing somatosensory neurons in zebrafish.  He also talks to us about developing zebrafish larvae as a behavioral screening tool for analgesic drug discovery. Duration: 35 minutes Discussants:(in alphabetical order) Salma Quraishi (Res Asst Prof, UTSA) Lindsey Macpherson (Asst Prof, UTSA) acknowledgement: JM Tepper for original music. Thursday, November 7, 2019

Thursday, October 31, 2019 Sophie Caron (U of Utah) discusses how sensory representations shift from ordered to random in the sensory system of drosophila. Duration: 35minutes Discussants:(in alphabetical order) Salma Quraishi (Res Asst Prof, UTSA) Lindsey Macpherson (Asst Prof, UTSA) Charles Wilson (Ewing Halsell Chair, UTSA) acknowledgement: JM Tepper for original music.

Thursday, October 24, 2019 Michelle Diaz (Penn State) discusses how language features might be organized in the neural architecture and talks about her structural and behavioral studies of how language production changes over the lifespan. Duration: 35minutes Discussants:(in alphabetical order) Salma Quraishi (Res Asst Prof, UTSA) Todd Troyer (Assoc Prof, UTSA) Nicole Wicha (Professor, UTSA) Charles Wilson (Ewing Halsell Chair, UTSA) acknowledgement: JM Tepper for original music.

Thursday, October 10, 2019 Ottavio Arancio discusses the problematic aspects of therapeutic strategies built upon the amyloid hypothesis of Alzheimer's disease, and his work defining the synaptic effects of soluble beta amyloid and tau oligomers in the etiopathogenesis of Alzheimer’s disease. Duration: 39 minutes Discussants:(in alphabetical order) Hyoung-gon Lee (Assoc Prof, UTSA) Salma Quraishi (Res Asst Prof, UTSA) George Perry (Semmes Chair, UTSA) Charles Wilson (Ewing Halsell Chair, UTSA) acknowledgement: JM Tepper for original music.

Thursday, October 3, 2019 Mike Smotherman joins us again to talk echolocation in bats, specifically how physiological studies in his lab investigate the circuitry that shapes sonar pulse acoustics.  He discusses how bats in groups implement circuit plasticity to coordinate their sonar systems to minimize interference. Duration: 39 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, September 12, 2019 Recorded as a panel discussion following the UTSA Neurosciences Institute’s 2019 research symposium on September 12, 2019.   Hosted by Charles Wilson Duration: 44 minutes Discussants:(in alphabetical order) Mark Bevan, Professor in Physiology, Northwestern University Robert Turner Professor, Pitt Jerrold Vitek, Mcknight Professor, University of Minnesota Judith Walters, Senior Investigator, NINDS Charles Wilson, Ewing Halsell Chair, UTSA acknowledgement: JM Tepper for original music.

Thursday, April 18, 2019 Maya Henry (UT Austin) talks to us about her imaging studies of patients suffering from primary progressive aphasias, what they tell us about speech and language networks, and how her rehabilitation studies are demonstrating speech gains for patients with an otherwise poor degenerative prognosis. Duration: 39 minutes Discussants:(in alphabetical order) Salma Quraishi (Res Asst Prof, UTSA) Todd Troyer (Assoc Prof, UTSA) Nicole Wicha (Assoc Prof, UTSA) Charles Wilson (Ewing Halsell Chair, UTSA) acknowledgement: JM Tepper for original music.

Wednesday, April 10, 2019 Brian Kaspar (AveXis Inc) talks about the realities and promise of building a single-dose gene transfer therapy for treating the prime gene defect in spinal muscular atrophy (SMA) type I.  He discusses his company’s modified adeno-associated virus 9 approach to human gene therapy that is currently in highly promising clinical trials, for SMA, and in development for Rett syndrome and one variant of Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis. Duration: 45 minutes Discussants:(in alphabetical order) Jenny Hsieh (Semmes Foundation Chair, UTSA) Salma Quraishi (Res Asst Prof, UTSA) Charles Wilson (Ewing Halsell Chair, UTSA) acknowledgement: JM Tepper for original music.

Thursday, April 4, 2019 Craig Blackstone (UT Health San Antonio) tells us about new vantage points on endoplasmic reticulum structure, dynamics and function through advanced imaging technologies in the context of his work on hereditary spastic paraplegias. Duration: 46 minutes Discussants:(in alphabetical order) Michael Hanna (Asst Professor of Practice, UTSA) Salma Quraishi (Res Asst Prof, UTSA) Fidel Santamaria (Assoc Prof, UTSA) Charles Wilson (Ewing Halsell Chair, UTSA) acknowledgement: JM Tepper for original music.

Tuesday, March 21, 2019 Sarah Hopp (UT Health San Antonio) discusses tau seeding in the developing pathology of Alzheimer's disease, and the role that microglia may play in supporting it. Duration: 46 minutes Discussants:(in alphabetical order) Salma Quraishi (Res Asst Prof, UTSA) Charles Wilson (Ewing Halsell Chair, UTSA) acknowledgement: JM Tepper for original music.

Thursday, February 21, 2019 Catharine Winstanley (UBC Vancouver) discusses mechanisms of impulsive and poor decision-making in gambling and its intersection with mechanisms of disparate drugs of abuse, addiction and relapse.  The group considers whether addiction is a single disease, and whether catecholamine systems are the final common pathway for various addiction trajectories. (apologies for some uneven sound, it’s worth roughing it out!) Duration: 46 minutes Discussants:(in alphabetical order) Salma Quraishi (Res Asst Prof, UTSA) Carlos Paladini (Professor, UTSA) Matt Wanat (Asst Prof, UTSA) Charles Wilson (Ewing Halsell Chair, UTSA) acknowledgement: JM Tepper for original music.

Thursday, February 14, 2019 Jon Sakata (McGill) talks about songbird plasticity in the zebra finch, and how brain circuits transduce social information to modulate the learning and control of birdsong. Duration: 37 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 7, 2019 This episode is a panel discussion recorded as the conclusion of a two part series showcasing Present & Future Frameworks in Theoretical Neuroscience, an international workshop hosted by Horacio Rotstein (NJIT) & Fidel Santamaria (UTSA) through support of NSF’s Brain Initiative (see episode 194 for Part I).  Part II is a round table with a new group that recaps the themes of the workshop and reports on the main themes of the discussions that occurred in each of the five workgroups.  Many trainees were involved in the workshop, and two of them join the panel to highlight the value and necessity of fresh voices to any discussion about the future of theoretical neuroscience.  Workshop co-organizer Fidel Santamaria leads the panel. Duration: 34 minutes Panel:(in alphabetical order, pictured left to right) Habiba Azab, PhD student, Ben Hayden lab, UMN - Student perspective on Organizing Theories Workgroup Carmen Canavier, Professor & Vice Chair, LSU Health Kreš

Monday, February 4, 2019 This episode is a panel discussion recorded as Part I of a two part series on the recent Present & Future Frameworks in Theoretical Neuroscience, an international workshop hosted by Horacio Rotstein (NJIT) & Fidel Santamaria (UTSA) with support from the NSF’s Brain Initiative.  Part I is a preamble recorded on day one of the meeting, in which some friends of the podcast (see below) define the need for the workshop and identify their objectives as they undertake their workgroups.  Hosted by Salma Quraishi. Stay tuned for Part II, which was recorded at the close of the workshop.  Part II will be posted separately as a follow up to summarize some of the critical discussions that transpired in the workgroups. Duration: 33 minutes Panel:(in alphabetical order, pictured left to right) Veronica Alvarez, Senior Investigator, IRP NIAAA Alain Destexhe, Research Director, CNRS Paris Tatiana Engel, Assistant Professor, CSHL Horacio Rotstein, Professor, NJIT David Redish, Di

Thursday, January 31, 2019 Liberty Hamilton (UT Austin) talks about using electrocorticography to study the representation and processing of speech sounds in the auditory cortex. Duration: 40 minutes Discussants:(in alphabetical order) Salma Quraishi (Res Asst Prof, UTSA) Todd Troyer (Assoc Prof, UTSA Nicole Wicha (Assoc Prof, UTSA) Charles Wilson (Ewing Halsell Chair, UTSA) acknowledgement: JM Tepper for original music.