Neuroscientists Talk Shop

Thursday, January 24, 2019 Jeff Golden (Harvard Medical School) talks about dichotomies in mitochondrial dynamics observed in the migration of cortical neurons and interneurons in early development and neuronal patterning. Duration: 42 minutes Discussants:(in alphabetical order) Jenny Hsieh (Semmes Foundation Chair, UTSA) Asif Maroof (Asst Prof, UTSA) Salma Quraishi (Res Asst Prof, UTSA) Todd Troyer (Assoc Prof, UTSA Charles Wilson (Ewing Halsell Chair, UTSA) acknowledgement: JM Tepper for original music.

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.

Thursday, March 22, 2018 Ulrich Hofmann (Freiburg University) discusses the priorities and realities in implementing control theory, computational models and engineering principles to build implantable devices that can read and write to the nervous system as an approach for treating CNS disorders like paralysis, epilepsy, depression, and others. Duration: 45 minutes Discussants:(in alphabetical order) Salma Quraishi (Res Asst Prof, UTSA) Fidel Santamaria (Assoc Prof, UTSA) Todd Troyer (Assoc Prof, UTSA) Charles Wilson (Ewing Halsell Chair, UTSA) acknowledgement: JM Tepper for original music.

Thursday, March 1, 2018 John Mantsch (Marquette University) discusses various animal models of drug relapse that differentiate aspects of how stress impinges on reward circuits to promote drug seeking. Duration: 40 minutes Discussants:(in alphabetical order) Carlos Paladini (Professor, UTSA) Salma Quraishi (Res 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, February 22, 2018 Ed Stern (Bar-Ilan University, Israel) discusses corticostriatal networks in mouse models of Alzheimer’s disease. Duration: 42 minutes Discussants:(in alphabetical order) Alfonso Apicella (Asst Prof, UTSA) Salma Quraishi (Res Asst Prof, UTSA) Charles Wilson (Ewing Halsell Chair, UTSA) acknowledgement: JM Tepper for original music.

Friday, February 9, 2018 Recorded as a panel discussion following the UTSA Neurosciences Institute’s 2018 research symposium.  The group discusses the tripartite synapse concept, which was coined by two of our panelists, Phil Haydon and Alfonso Araque, in the late 1990s.  The group considers the diverse mechanisms of astrocyte-neuron communication and the magnitude of how we are beginning to redefine the neural circuits of behavior and disease based on this new framework.  Hosted by Salma Quraishi. Duration: 49 minutes Discussants:(in alphabetical order) The Panelists Alfonso Araque, Robert & Elaine Larson Neuroscience Research Chair, University of Minnesota Medical School Philip Haydon, Annetta and Gustav Grisard Professor of Neuroscience, Sackler School of Medicine, Tufts University Erik Herzog, Professor of Biology, Washington University in St. Louis Carlos Paladini, Professor of Biology, UTSA Joining the discussion James Lechleiter, Professor of Cells Systems & Anatomy, UT Health Sa

Thursday, February 8, 2018 Marco Gallio (Northwestern) talks about temperature sensation in Drosophila as a “fruitful” model system for examining sensory encoding and propagation of representations through a relatively reduced sensorimotor system. Duration: 39 minutes Discussants:(in alphabetical order) Alfonso Apicella (Asst Prof, UTSA) Lindsey Macpherson (Asst Prof, UTSA) Salma Quraishi (Res Asst Prof, UTSA) Todd Troyer (Assoc Prof, UTSA) Charles Wilson (Ewing Halsell Chair, UTSA) acknowledgement: JM Tepper for original music.

Thursday, January 18, 2018 Dwight Bergles (Johns Hopkins) discusses his work characterizing a fourth mysterious class of CNS glial cells, called oligodendrocyte precursor cells. Duration: 46 minutes Discussants:(in alphabetical order) Carlos Paladini (Professor, UTSA) 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 2, 2017 Aurelio Galli (UAB) discusses the biophysics of the dopamine transporter, its relevance to disease, and how he is leveraging drosophila to study behavioral phenotypes of dopamine transporter mutations. Duration: 35 minutes Discussants:(in alphabetical order) Carlos Paladini (Professor, UTSA) Salma Quraishi (Res 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, October 26, 2017 Lori Knackstedt (UF Gainesville) discusses glutamate homeostasis mechanisms in the nucleus accumbens in mediating relapse to cocaine-seeking in rodent models of cue-induced extinction and abstinence. Duration: 46 minutes Discussants:(in alphabetical order) Carlos Paladini (Professor, UTSA) Salma Quraishi (Res Asst Prof, UTSA) Todd Troyer (Assoc Prof, UTSA) Matthew Wanat (Asst Prof, UTSA) Charles Wilson (Ewing Halsell Chair, UTSA) acknowledgement: JM Tepper for original music.

Thursday, October 19, 2017 Veronica Alvarez (NIAAA) discusses using drugs of abuse to probe D2 mechanisms in striatal circuitry and effects on behavior. Duration: 46 minutes Discussants:(in alphabetical order) Alfonso Apicella (Asst Prof, UTSA) Carlos Paladini (Professor, UTSA) Salma Quraishi (Res Asst Prof, UTSA) Todd Troyer (Assoc Prof, UTSA) Matthew Wanat (Asst Prof, UTSA) Charles Wilson (Ewing Halsell Chair, UTSA) acknowledgement: JM Tepper for original music.

Thursday, October 12, 2017 Ann Graybiel (MIT) discusses her work on cortical-basal ganglia loops and habit formation. Duration: 46 minutes Discussants:(in alphabetical order) Alfonso Apicella (Asst Prof, UTSA) Carlos Paladini (Professor, UTSA) Salma Quraishi (Res Asst Prof, UTSA) Todd Troyer (Assoc Prof, UTSA) Matthew Wanat (Asst Prof, UTSA) Charles Wilson (Ewing Halsell Chair, UTSA) acknowledgement: JM Tepper for original music.

Thursday, September 21, 2017 Dean Buonomano (UCLA) talks about strategies that neural networks might use to store information about time in the states of neural networks. Duration: 38 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.

Recorded as a panel discussion following the UTSA Neurosciences Institute’s 2017 research symposium on September 14, 2017.  Hosted by Salma Quraishi. Duration: 38 minutes Discussants:(in alphabetical order) Andre Fenton, Professor of Neural Science, NYU James Knierim, Professor of Neuroscience, Johns Hopkins Isabel Muzzio, Associate Professor, UTSA A. David Redish, Distinguished McKnight University Professor, U of Minnesota Charles Wilson (Ewing Halsell Chair, UTSA) acknowledgement: JM Tepper for original music.

Thursday, September 7, 2017 Suzanne Haber (U Rochester Med Ctr) talks about defining anatomy and structural connections in the context of function in the cortico-basal ganglia-thalamic system. Duration: 37 minutes Discussants:(in alphabetical order) Alfonso Apicella (Asst Prof, UTSA) Salma Quraishi (Res Asst Prof, UTSA) Todd Troyer (Assoc Prof, UTSA) Charles Wilson (Ewing Halsell Chair, UTSA) acknowledgement: JM Tepper for original music.

Thursday, August 24, 2017 Mark Shapiro (UT Health, San Antonio) talks about visualizing how the anchoring protein AKAP79/150 orchestrates functional coupling of ion channel assemblies using super-resolution microscopy. Duration: 39 minutes Discussants:(in alphabetical order) Salma Quraishi (Res Asst Prof, UTSA) Fidel Santamaria (Assoc Prof, UTSA) Charles Wilson (Ewing Halsell Chair, UTSA) acknowledgement: JM Tepper for original music.