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Neuroscience Talks in Cambridge

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A superlist combining individual seminars and series from other lists on talks.cam. These Neuroscience-themed seminars will be advertised throughout the relevant interest group in Cambridge.
URL: http://talks.cam.ac.uk/show/index/6028
Updated: 1 hour 3 min ago

Mon 27 Mar 11:30: A functioning neuroanatomy of autism

Fri, 24/03/2023 - 14:34
A functioning neuroanatomy of autism

Over the past two decades, neuroimaging studies have revealed differences in brain structure and intrinsic function between people with autism and neurotypical controls, but there is also high heterogeneity in reported results.

In this talk, I will discuss some of my work in this area by taking a systems-level perspective. First, I will illustrate how the brain is organized by its past, e.g., evolutionary and ontogenetic processes. Then, I will discuss how this can help understand observations of brain structural differences and their functional consequences in the context of autism. Finally, I will discuss the possible implications for environmental plasticity within this framework.

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Fri 05 May 16:30: The DNA revolution and psychology

Fri, 24/03/2023 - 09:44
The DNA revolution and psychology

The century-long journey from behavioural genetics (e.g., twin studies) to behavioural genomics (DNA studies) has transformed genetic research in the behavioural sciences. I will focus on one discovery with far-reaching implications for psychopathology. For the domains of personality and cognitive abilities, domains whose hierarchical structures were built psychometrically from the ground up, their phenotypic structure reflects their genetic architecture. In contrast, for psychopathology, the genetic architecture looks very different from our current symptom-based diagnoses, whose origins are more historical than empirical. First, there is a great deal of genetic overlap between disorders. A striking example is that most genes that affect schizophrenia also affect bipolar disorder. Second, there are no genetically distinct disorders, just continuous dimensions of genetic risk. I hope to evoke a discussion of the scientific and clinical implications of these findings.

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Mon 27 Mar 11:30: ARClub Speaker Sofie Valk

Wed, 22/03/2023 - 17:21
ARClub Speaker Sofie Valk

Dr Valk will speak about some of her recent autism-related work. Full abstract coming soon

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Thu 30 Mar 12:00: Oligodendroglia during development and disease: insights from single-cell and spatial epigenomics

Tue, 14/03/2023 - 13:56
Oligodendroglia during development and disease: insights from single-cell and spatial epigenomics

Professor Gonçalo Castelo-Branco is a Professor of Glial Cell Biology at the Department of Medical Biochemistry and Biophysics at Karolinska Institutet, Stockholm, Sweden. Prof. Castelo-Branco received his PhD in Medical Biochemistry in 2005, working on development of dopaminergic neurons and neural stem differentiation. He completed post-doctoral fellowships first at the Karolinska Institutet and then at the University of Cambridge, United Kingdom, working in neural and pluripotent stem cells and chromatin. Prof. Castelo-Branco started his research group in 2012, focusing on the molecular mechanisms regulating the epigenomic states of oligodendrocyte lineage cells in neuroinflammatory and demyelinating diseases such as multiple sclerosis (MS), using technologies such as single cell and spatial transcriptomics and epigenomics, among others. The long-term goal of his group is to build a solid platform of convergent knowledge and know-how on the epigenetics of (re)myelination and neuroinflammation, which will allow to establish innovative regenerative strategies for neuroinflammatory diseases such as MS. Prof. Castelo-Branco has received many prestigious awards and grants, including the European Research Council Consolidator Grant, the Swedish Society for Medical Research (SSMF) 100 years Jubileum Prize, the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences Göran Gustafsson Prize 2021 in Medicine and the Hans Wigzell prize 2022.

Zoom link for this talk: https://zoom.us/j/97489647096?pwd=SC9XUkNLYlFNbzJoVys3ZWY1Ykhidz09 Meeting ID: 974 8964 7096 Passcode: 969088

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Thu 16 Mar 15:00: Network approaches to psychopathology: An overview

Mon, 13/03/2023 - 09:52
Network approaches to psychopathology: An overview

In the network approach to psychopathology, disorders are sets of causally connected symptoms. This conceptualization offers novel perspectives on the theoretical status of mental disorders: instead of cleanly separable categories that reflect central neural or psychological deficits, disorders are tightly connected regions in a symptom network. This conceptual framework suggests novel approaches to both the analysis of research data and the organization of treatment interventions, primarily through the application of network analysis: a set of techniques that offers powerful tools to study the dynamics of interconnected systems, to analyze the architecture of networks involving large numbers of entities (e.g., neurons, people, genes, variables), and to visualize connectivity structures in such networks. In the present talk, I will give an overview of the most important insights and results that have arisen from the network approach.

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Tue 14 Mar 16:00: Fragile minds in a scary world: trauma and post traumatic stress in very young children

Fri, 10/03/2023 - 16:12
Fragile minds in a scary world: trauma and post traumatic stress in very young children

Theme: Adaptive Brain Computations

Theme: Lifelong Brain Development & Brain Ageing

Abstract: Post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is a prevalent and disabling condition that affects larger numbers of children and adolescents worldwide. Until recently, we have understood little about the nature of PTSD reactions in our youngest children (aged under 8 years old). This talk describes our work over the last 15 years working with this very young age group. It overviews how we need a markedly different PTSD diagnosis for very young children, data on the prevalence of this new diagnostic algorithm, and the development of a psychological intervention and its evaluation in a clinical trial.

Bio: Tim Dalgleish is a clinical psychologist. He works both as a research scientist for the Medical Research Council and as a practitioner in the NHS . His research focuses on understanding and developing psychological treatments for common mental health problems, such as depression, anxiety, and post-traumatic stress. He adopts a translational approach, seeking to utilise insights from basic cognitive neuroscience to enhance clinical interventions for these conditions. His work employs a range of scientific methods from brain imaging through to the use of large scale clinical trials.

Register in advance for this meeting: https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZAkfumgqzIvH9Fjk4RojHRgU6pb1MwrmVew

After registering, you will receive a confirmation email containing information about joining the meeting.

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Thu 30 Mar 12:00: Oligodendroglia during development and disease: insights from single-cell and spatial epigenomics

Thu, 09/03/2023 - 13:21
Oligodendroglia during development and disease: insights from single-cell and spatial epigenomics

Professor Gonçalo Castelo-Branco is a Professor of Glial Cell Biology at the Department of Medical Biochemistry and Biophysics at Karolinska Institutet, Stockholm, Sweden. Prof. Castelo-Branco received his PhD in Medical Biochemistry in 2005, working on development of dopaminergic neurons and neural stem differentiation. He completed post-doctoral fellowships first at the Karolinska Institutet and then at the University of Cambridge, United Kingdom, working in neural and pluripotent stem cells and chromatin. Prof. Castelo-Branco started his research group in 2012, focusing on the molecular mechanisms regulating the epigenomic states of oligodendrocyte lineage cells in neuroinflammatory and demyelinating diseases such as multiple sclerosis (MS), using technologies such as single cell and spatial transcriptomics and epigenomics, among others. The long-term goal of his group is to build a solid platform of convergent knowledge and know-how on the epigenetics of (re)myelination and neuroinflammation, which will allow to establish innovative regenerative strategies for neuroinflammatory diseases such as MS. Prof. Castelo-Branco has received many prestigious awards and grants, including the European Research Council Consolidator Grant, the Swedish Society for Medical Research (SSMF) 100 years Jubileum Prize, the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences Göran Gustafsson Prize 2021 in Medicine and the Hans Wigzell prize 2022.

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Thu 30 Mar 12:00: Oligodendroglia during development and disease: insights from single-cell and spatial epigenomics

Thu, 09/03/2023 - 12:12
Oligodendroglia during development and disease: insights from single-cell and spatial epigenomics

Professor Gonçalo Castelo-Branco is a Professor of Glial Cell Biology at the Department of Medical Biochemistry and Biophysics at Karolinska Institutet, Stockholm, Sweden. Prof. Castelo-Branco received his PhD in Medical Biochemistry in 2005, working on development of dopaminergic neurons and neural stem differentiation. He completed post-doctoral fellowships first at the Karolinska Institutet and then at the University of Cambridge, United Kingdom, working in neural and pluripotent stem cells and chromatin. Prof. Castelo-Branco started his research group in 2012, focusing on the molecular mechanisms regulating the epigenomic states of oligodendrocyte lineage cells in neuroinflammatory and demyelinating diseases such as multiple sclerosis (MS), using technologies such as single cell and spatial transcriptomics and epigenomics, among others. The long-term goal of his group is to build a solid platform of convergent knowledge and know-how on the epigenetics of (re)myelination and neuroinflammation, which will allow to establish innovative regenerative strategies for neuroinflammatory diseases such as MS. Prof. Castelo-Branco has received many prestigious awards and grants, including the European Research Council Consolidator Grant, the Swedish Society for Medical Research (SSMF) 100 years Jubileum Prize, the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences Göran Gustafsson Prize 2021 in Medicine and the Hans Wigzell prize 2022.

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Tue 07 Mar 16:00: Integrative Neuromodulation: from biomarker identification to optimizing neuromodulation

Mon, 06/03/2023 - 09:28
Integrative Neuromodulation: from biomarker identification to optimizing neuromodulation

Theme: Adaptive Brain Computations

Abstract: Why do we make decisions impulsively blinded in an emotionally rash moment? Or caught in the same repetitive suboptimal loop, avoiding fears or rushing headlong towards illusory rewards? These cognitive constructs underlying self-control and compulsive behaviours and their influence by emotion or incentives are relevant dimensionally across healthy individuals and hijacked across disorders of addiction, compulsivity and mood. My lab focuses on identifying theory-driven modifiable biomarkers focusing on these cognitive constructs with the ultimate goal to optimize and develop novel means of neuromodulation. Here I will provide a few examples of my group’s recent work to illustrate this approach. I describe a series of recent studies on intracranial physiology and acute stimulation focusing on risk taking and emotional processing. This talk highlights the subthalamic nucleus, a common target for deep brain stimulation for Parkinson’s disease and obsessive-compulsive disorder. I further describe recent translational work in non-invasive neuromodulation. Together these examples illustrate the approach of the lab highlighting modifiable biomarkers and optimizing neuromodulation.

Biography: Valerie Voon is a Professor in the Dept of Psychiatry at the University of Cambridge and at Fudan University in Shanghai China and a consultant neuropsychiatrist with the Cambridgeshire and Peterborough NHS Foundation Trust. Her group investigates mechanisms underlying self-control and repetitive behaviours and the influence of emotion and incentives. Her lab focuses on integrative neuromodulation identifying modifiable biomarkers using multiple modalities with the goal to optimize and develop novel means of neuromodulation.

Register in advance for this meeting: https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZEkduCsrTgoH9dArdJfzAvAnOT6vc1dXegp

After registering, you will receive a confirmation email containing information about joining the meeting.

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Thu 02 Mar 15:00: Relations and Predictions in Brains and Machines

Mon, 27/02/2023 - 13:07
Relations and Predictions in Brains and Machines

Humans and animals learn and plan with flexibility and efficiency well beyond that of modern Machine Learning methods. This is hypothesized to owe in part to the ability of animals to build structured representations of their environments, and modulate these representations to rapidly adapt to new settings. In the first part of this talk, I will discuss theoretical work describing how learned representations in hippocampus enable rapid adaptation to new goals by learning predictive representations, while entorhinal cortex compresses these predictive representations with spectral methods that support smooth generalization among related states. I will also cover recent work extending this account, in which we show how the predictive model can be adapted to the probabilistic setting to describe a broader array of generalization results in humans and animals, and how entorhinal representations can be modulated to support sample generation optimized for different behavioral states. In the second part of the talk, I will overview some of the ways in which we have combined many of the same mathematical concepts with state-of-the-art deep learning methods to improve efficiency and performance in machine learning applications like physical simulation, relational reasoning, and design.

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Mon 06 Mar 16:00: Microglial immunophenotype in the human brain

Mon, 27/02/2023 - 11:20
Microglial immunophenotype in the human brain

Genome wide association studies have implicated several inflammation-related genes as risk factors for Alzheimer’s disease, particularly in relation to innate immunity, suggesting a component of microglial activity is likely to be causal in the pathogenic pathway. Therefore, we have developed a number of microglial markers to immunophenotype microglia in the human brain. I will present our findings on microglial immunophenotype obtained on human post-mortem cohorts of Alzheimer’s disease and dementia with Lewy bodies as well as on our unique cohort of brains from Alzheimer’s patients enrolled in the first clinical trial of Aβ42 immunotherapy (AN1792, Elan Pharmaceuticals). These studies highlight the complexity and diversity of microglial responses in dementia and their involvement in therapeutic studies.

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Fri 12 May 16:30: Chrysippus' dog and the origins of modal concepts

Mon, 20/02/2023 - 13:14
Chrysippus' dog and the origins of modal concepts

Abstract not available

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Tue 21 Feb 14:00: Computational Neuroscience Journal Club

Sun, 19/02/2023 - 12:14
Computational Neuroscience Journal Club

Summary In a slight departure from our usual structure, this edition of the journal club will pay tribute to the late Krishna Shenoy, who sadly passed away in January. Krishna’s contributions to the field were significant and wide-ranging, particularly in areas of motor cortex dynamics and brain-computer interface (BCI). After a brief retrospective we’ll delve deeper into these contributions, examining some of his papers which had the greatest impact in the field.

We first review some of his key contributions to understanding the neural control of movement. 15 years ago, basic motor cortex responses were still poorly understood and subject of multiple controversies over competing representational views (such as whether cortical activity encodes muscle action or reach velocity). Krishna proposed the alternative “dynamical systems perspective”, spanning across many works over more than a decade.

We’ll then examine some of his work on BCI , starting with “A high-performance brain–computer interface” (Santhanam et al. 2006). This paper demonstrated an invasive BCI in two rhesus monkeys that achieved unprecedented information rates via a ‘direct end-point control’ strategy. We’ll then discuss “A high-performance neural prosthesis enabled by control algorithm design” (Gilja et al. 2012), where we consider a control algorithm based on a modified Kalman filter (ReFIT-KF) which enables high performance across cursor movement tasks.

References [1] “Cortical Preparatory Activity: Representation of Movement or First Cog in a Dynamical Machine?” (Churchland et al. 2010) [2] “Neural population dynamics during reaching” (Churchland et al. 2013) [3] “Cortical activity in the null space: permitting preparation without movement” (Churchland et al. 2014) [4] “A high-performance brain–computer interface” (Santhanam et al. 2006) [5] “A high-performance neural prosthesis enabled by control algorithm design” (Gilja et al. 2012)

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Tue 28 Feb 16:00: Fidelity and Replication: Modelling the Impact of Protocol Deviations on Effect Size

Mon, 13/02/2023 - 17:09
Fidelity and Replication: Modelling the Impact of Protocol Deviations on Effect Size

Theme: Adaptive Brain Computations

Abstract: Cognitive science and cognitive neuroscience researchers have agreed that the replication of findings is important for establishing which ideas (or theories) are integral to the study of cognition across the lifespan. Recently, high-profile papers have called into question findings that were once thought to be unassailable. Much attention has been paid to how p-hacking, publication bias, and sample size are responsible for failed replications. However, much less attention has been paid to the fidelity by which researchers enact study protocols. Researchers conducting education or clinical trials are aware of the importance in fidelity – or the extent to which the protocols are delivered in the same way across participants. Nevertheless, this idea has not been applied to cognitive contexts. This seminar discusses factors that impact the replicability of findings alongside recent models suggesting that even small fidelity deviations have real impacts on the data collected.

Bio: Michelle Ellefson is Professor of Cognitive Science at the University of Cambridge Faculty of Education. She convenes the INSTRUCT Lab (Implementing New Student Thinking Resources Using Cognitive Theory) conducting research at the intersection of cognitive psychology and educational neuroscience. Her current research projects focus on the role of executive functions in school achievement and how reasoning about causes and effects impacts how humans make sense of scientific phenomena. In addition, she is applying specific cognitive principles to classroom learning, including simplicity and desirable difficulties. Initially trained in developmental cognitive neuroscience, her interests in improving cognitive outcomes for all children/adolescents have inspired her to reach beyond this foundational training to develop her integrative, multi-disciplinary approach that informs both school practice and theoretical accounts of cognitive development.

Key websites:

https://sites.google.com/site/instructlab/

https://www.educ.cam.ac.uk/people/staff/ellefson/

https://www.neuroscience.cam.ac.uk/directory/profile.php?mellefson

https://www.cai.cam.ac.uk/people/professor-michelle-ellefson

https://www.cares.cam.ac.uk/research/clic/

Register in advance for this seminar: https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZIucOGorD4oGtHZw_2GPBRiw21J7LwJc43U

After registering, you will receive a confirmation email containing information about joining the meeting.

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Tue 14 Mar 16:00: Dr Tim Dalgleish

Mon, 13/02/2023 - 16:24
Dr Tim Dalgleish

Theme: Adaptive Brain Computations

Theme: Lifelong Brain Development & Brain Ageing

Register in advance for this meeting: https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZAkfumgqzIvH9Fjk4RojHRgU6pb1MwrmVew

After registering, you will receive a confirmation email containing information about joining the meeting.

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Tue 30 May 16:00: Immunosuppression for Parkinson's disease - a new therapeutic strategy?

Mon, 13/02/2023 - 15:48
Immunosuppression for Parkinson's disease - a new therapeutic strategy?

Theme: Lifelong Brain Development and Brain Ageing Theme: Beyond the Neuron: glia, vascular and immune cells

Biography: Caroline Williams-Gray is a Principal Research Associate in the Department of Clinical Neurosciences, University of Cambridge, and an honorary consultant neurologist specializing in Parkinson’s disease and movement disorders. She leads a translational research group investigating the clinical and biological heterogeneity of PD, with the ultimate goal of developing more targeted therapies for different Parkinson’s subtypes. Her recent work has focused on the theory that the immune system plays a significant role in mediating the heterogeneity of PD and its progression. Her lab is investigating this using blood and CSF -based immune markers, PET neuroimaging and neuropathology in stratified PD cohorts; and she is leading the first randomized controlled trial repurposing a peripheral immunosuppressive drug (azathioprine) to slow the progression of PD.

Register in advance for this meeting: https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZAkcOyprT4pE9CaGzRYllmKF5K_xvEWuRmJ

After registering, you will receive a confirmation email containing information about joining the meeting.

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Tue 14 Feb 14:00: Computational Neuroscience Journal Club

Mon, 13/02/2023 - 14:06
Computational Neuroscience Journal Club

Please join us for our fortnightly journal club online via zoom where two presenters will jointly present a topic together. The next topic is ‘Hippocampal remapping and contextual inference’ presented by Puria Radmard and David Liu.

Zoom information: https://eng-cam.zoom.us/j/84204498431?pwd=Um1oU284b1YxWThObGw4ZU9XZitWdz09 Meeting ID: 842 0449 8431 Passcode: 684140

Summary: The location-specific firing of hippocampal place cells has garnered interest in their sensitivity to changes in the animal’s environmental cues, past experience, and even internal states, in a process called remapping. Muller and Kubie (1987) document enlightening but unpredictable remapping of firing fields while changing the size and salient features of an animal’s enclosure. Plitt and Giocomo (2021) frame remapping in a Bayesian setting, forming the animal’s prior over environmental cues by changing the frequency of their appearance during training. The impact on subsequent responses suggests remapping is used to both map location and optimally infer environmental variables. Finally, Low et al. (2023) compare the ring attractor dynamics developed by an RNN trained to simultaneously track both location and an internal state, to neural data of mice undergoing spontaneous remapping, i.e. remapping in response to internal rather than navigational features.

References:

[1] https://www.jneurosci.org/content/jneuro/7/7/1951.full.pdf (Muller and Kubie, 1987)

[2] https://www.nature.com/articles/s41593-021-00816-6 (Plitt and Giocomo, 2021)

[3] https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2023.01.25.525596v2 (Low et al., 2023)

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Fri 10 Mar 13:00: Form and function during early heart development

Mon, 13/02/2023 - 14:05
Form and function during early heart development

Abstract not available

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Fri 03 Mar 13:00: Tumor initiation through aberrant differentiation

Mon, 13/02/2023 - 14:05
Tumor initiation through aberrant differentiation

Abstract not available

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Fri 24 Feb 13:00: Encoding and decoding morphogen gradients

Mon, 13/02/2023 - 14:05
Encoding and decoding morphogen gradients

Abstract not available

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