Tue 27 Feb 09:30: Child Development Forum Lent II
SPEAKER NAME : Jiayin Zheng
DEPARTMENT : Department of Education
TALK TITLE : Can we depict a comprehensive picture of children’s school readiness? The application of person-centred approach with a Chinese sample
SPEAKER NAME : Dr Kate Merritt
DEPARTMENT : UCL Institute of Mental Health
TALK TITLE : The impact of cumulative childhood trauma and obstetric complications on brain volume in young people with psychotic experiences
SPEAKER NAME : Dr Ceci Qing Cai
DEPARTMENT : UCL Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience
TALK TITLE : ‘Making sense of laughter in autism’ Child Development Forum are a series of talks bringing together researchers of infant, child and adolescent development across the University of Cambridge.
Talks are termly, and usually held at the MRC Cognition and Brain Sciences Unit (Chaucer Road).
Join the mailing list to kept up-to-date, and sign up to give a talk:
https://lists.cam.ac.uk/sympa/info/ucam-childdevforum
This talk is part of the Child Development Forum (CDF) series.
- Speaker: Jiayin Zheng (Education@Cambridge), Kate Merritt (IMH@UCL), Ceci Qing Cai (ICN@UCL)
- Tuesday 27 February 2024, 09:30-11:00
- Venue: Hybrid: Centre for Family Research, Old Cavendish Building, Rayleigh Wing (ground floor).
- Series: Child Development Forum (CDF); organiser: Giacomo.
Thu 22 Feb 12:00: “Enhancing Insight into Neurodegenerative Disease-Associated Genes via Long-Read RNA-Sequencing”
Abstract not available
- Speaker: Dr Emil Gustavsson, University College London
- Thursday 22 February 2024, 12:00-13:00
- Venue: Seminar Room, John van Geest Centre for Brain Repair, Forvie Site.
- Series: Clinical Neurosciences Seminars; organiser: Louise Massara.
Mon 19 Feb 12:30: Resting State fMRI & Recent Advances
Will will stream ISMRM-23 “Advances in fMRI” Educational Course’s session on ”Resting State fMRI & Recent Advances” by Marta Bianciardi (Harvard University). Let’s watch it together and discuss it afterwards!
Abstract: In this course, we first describe the major networks defined in humans based on resting state fMRI. We then present methods used for static and dynamic resting state fMRI connectivity analysis. Further, we provide an overview of resting state fMRI applications in neuroscience and in clinical studies, including recent advances in the field. Finally, we discuss current limitations of resting state fMRI methods and future directions. The target audience includes MRI scientists, neuroscientists, clinical researchers, neurologists and neurosurgeons interested in learning about methods, applications and recent advances of resting state fMRI in humans.
Venue: MRC CBU Lecture Theatre and Zoom https://us02web.zoom.us/j/82385113580?pwd=RmxIUmphQW9Ud1JBby9nTDQzR0NRdz09
- Speaker: Marta Bianciardi (Harvard University)
- Monday 19 February 2024, 12:30-13:30
- Venue: MRC-CBU, 15 Chaucer Road, Cambridge.
- Series: CBU Monday Methods Meeting; organiser: Dace Apšvalka.
Mon 04 Mar 12:30: Harnessing Visual Studio Code for Your Research
Abstract: Join us for a mini-workshop ‘Harnessing Visual Studio Code for Your Research’. The workshop aims to introduce participants to the versatility of VS Code as a development environment that can enhance research productivity. Discover how to customise VS Code for your projects, manage code with version control, and leverage extensions for scientific computing and data analysis. Whether you are coding experiments, analysing data, or writing up your findings, this workshop will provide you with the skills to streamline your research workflow. Perfect for beginners and seasoned coders alike the workshop will equip you with the tools to bring efficiency to your research.
Venue: MRC CBU Lecture Theatre and Zoom https://us02web.zoom.us/j/82385113580?pwd=RmxIUmphQW9Ud1JBby9nTDQzR0NRdz09
- Speaker: Máté Aller & Dace Apšvalka, MRC CBU
- Monday 04 March 2024, 12:30-13:30
- Venue: MRC-CBU, 15 Chaucer Road, Cambridge.
- Series: CBU Monday Methods Meeting; organiser: Dace Apšvalka.
Thu 15 Feb 16:00: Towards Human Systems Biology of Sleep/Wake Cycles: Phosphorylation Hypothesis of Sleep
The field of human biology faces three major technological challenges. Firstly, the causation problem is difficult to address in humans compared to model animals. Secondly, the complexity problem arises due to the lack of a comprehensive cell atlas for the human body, despite its cellular composition. Lastly, the heterogeneity problem arises from significant variations in both genetic and environmental factors among individuals. To tackle these challenges, we have developed innovative approaches. These include 1) mammalian next-generation genetics, such as Triple CRISPR for knockout (KO) mice and ES mice for knock-in (KI) mice, which enables causation studies without traditional breeding methods; 2) whole-body/brain cell profiling techniques, such as CUBIC , to unravel the complexity of cellular composition; and 3) accurate and user-friendly technologies for measuring sleep and awake states, exemplified by ACCEL , to facilitate the monitoring of fundamental brain states in real-world settings and thus address heterogeneity in human.
By integrating these three technologies, we have made significant progress in addressing two major scientific challenges in sleep research: 1) understanding sleep regulation (sleep mechanisms) and 2) determining the role of sleep (sleep functions). With regard to sleep mechanisms, we have recently proposed the phosphorylation hypothesis of sleep, which emphasizes the role of the sleep-promoting kinase CaMKIIα/CaMKIIβ (Tatsuki et al., 2016; Tone et al., 2022; Ode et al., 2020) and the involvement of calcium signaling pathways (Tatsuki et al., 2016). According to this novel perspective, the dynamics of calcium, representing neural activity during wakefulness, can be integrated and converted into the auto-phosphorylation status of CaMKIIα/CaMKIIβ, which induces and sustains sleep (Tone et al., 2022). Concerning sleep functions, we conducted computational studies to examine synaptic efficacy dynamics during sleep and wakefulness. Our findings led to the formulation of the Wake-Inhibition-Sleep-Enhancement (WISE) hypothesis, suggesting that wakefulness inhibits synaptic efficacy, while sleep enhances it.
During this talk, we will also present our discoveries regarding the identification of muscarinic acetylcholine receptors (Chrm1 and Chrm3) as essential genes of REM sleep. Furthermore, we will discuss new insights into psychiatric disorders, neurodevelopmental disorders, and neurodegenerative disorders derived from the phosphorylation hypothesis of sleep.
This talk is hosted by Dr Keita Tamura and Dr Christian Wood.
You can join the talk via Zoom using the following link: https://cam-ac-uk.zoom.us/j/89822382715?pwd=eExMZlpERkRJM1R0d2NmUEZxU1ZEZz09 Meeting ID: 898 2238 2715 Passcode: 112932
- Speaker: Dr Hiroki Ueda, University of Tokyo, RIKEN BDR
- Thursday 15 February 2024, 16:00-17:00
- Venue: Hodgkin Huxley Seminar Room, Physiology builiding, Downing Site CB2 3EG.
- Series: Foster Talks; organiser: kt532.
Wed 21 Feb 15:00: How Can the Behavioral Sciences Inform the Climate Crisis Response?
The climate crisis is one of humanity’s most consequential and challenging threats, and addressing it requires massive behavioral and structural changes. As such, the behavioral sciences can play a critical role in this effort, through large-scale interventions and policy innovations. Following a unifying theoretical framework and leveraging a large array of methods, I investigate avenues in which the behavioral sciences can inform the climate crisis response, by changing false beliefs and stimulating climate action at the individual, collective, and system level. At the individual level, I use behavioral experiments to explore belief change strategies leveraging cognitive processes such as mnemonic accessibility, prediction errors, and emotional arousal, that can be used to decrease the prevalence of climate misinformation. At the collective level, I use social network analysis to investigate emergent properties of collective beliefs, such as synchronization and polarization, to maximize the effectiveness of individual interventions deployed in communities. At the system level, I investigate cycles of climate denialism propagation between society and artificial intelligence algorithms. Finally, to link conceptual processes to their behavioral signatures, I take a global megastudy approach to empirically test the relative effectiveness of the main theoretically informed behavioral interventions at stimulating collective climate action in 63 countries. Together, these theoretical insights spanning individual, collective, and systemic levels of analyses aim to inform policy and streamline the behavioral sciences’ response to the climate crisis.
- Speaker: Madalina Vlasceanu (New York University)
- Wednesday 21 February 2024, 15:00-16:00
- Venue: Ground Floor Lecture Theatre, Department of Psychology, Downing Site, Cambridge.
- Series: Social Psychology Seminar Series (SPSS); organiser: Yara Kyrychenko.
Wed 28 Feb 15:00: When Curiosity Gaps Backfire: Effects of Headline Concreteness on Information Selection Decisions
Journalists often use curiosity-inducing tactics in headlines to maximally appeal to readers, yet studies do not consistently show that clickbait techniques yield more engagement. In this talk, I tie headline strategies back to psychological theories about the information gap — the belief that curiosity is piqued when people are made aware of a gap in their knowledge. I introduce the Upworthy Research Archive, a large-scale corpus of A/B-tested news headlines that enables testing the causal effect of linguistics cues on reader behavior. By modeling the amount of information conveyed in a headline using an automated measured of sentence concreteness, I show that that there can be too much, or too little, information conveyed in a headline. I argue that computer scientists and communication scholars should rethink the binary nature of clickbait headlines in light of these findings.
Teams Meeting ID: 329 287 585 675 Passcode: yKwfhf
- Speaker: Marianne Simone Aubin Le Quere (Cornell University)
- Wednesday 28 February 2024, 15:00-16:00
- Venue: Ground Floor Lecture Theatre, Department of Psychology, Downing Site, Cambridge.
- Series: Social Psychology Seminar Series (SPSS); organiser: Yara Kyrychenko.
Thu 29 Feb 16:00: Nutritional programming by maternal over-nutrition: a developing obesity crisis.
Abstract not available
- Speaker: Susan Ozanne, MRC, University of Cambridge
- Thursday 29 February 2024, 16:00-17:00
- Venue: Hodgkin Huxley Seminar Room, Physiology builiding, Downing Site CB2 3EG.
- Series: Foster Talks; organiser: er454.
Wed 14 Feb 14:00: Computational Neuroscience Journal Club
Please join us for our Computational Neuroscience journal club on Wednesday 14th February at 2pm UK time in the CBL seminar room, or online on zoom.
The title is ‘Distributional Reinforcement Learning’, presented by Changmin Yu and Puria Radmard.
Summary:
In traditional reinforcement learning algorithms such as temporal difference learning, the value functions maps states to the expected total future return. In distributional reinforcement learning, this is extended to include the multiplicity of rewards, by mapping states to full distributions of returns. In this session, Changmin and Puria will start with an introduction to both traditional [1] and distributional [2, 3] reinforcement learning. Dabney et al., 2019 [4], show the distributional nature of value representation in VTA dopaminergic neurons, and the simple changes to classical TD learning that can bring about distributional value representations. Recent discoveries showed that midbrain dopaminergic neurons exhibit distributional value coding, which suggests the underlying mechanisms for such neurons to follow the distributional rather than classical expectation-based reinforcement learning regime. Prefrontal cortex neurons have been shown to be significantly involved in decision-making and reward-guided learning, and are anatomically related with the dopaminergic neurons. Muller et al. 2024 [5] present new analyses of existing data of primate prefrontal neurons in decision making tasks, showing that similar to what was found in rodent dopamine neurons [4], PFC neurons exhibit highly diverse profiles in optimism with respect to value coding, and in asymmetric scaling relative to positive versus negative RPEs. Moreover, in a task with dynamic reward structure, the authors show diversity in the rate of learning associated with positive and negative RPEs, hinting on the computational nature of distributional RL in the PFC for decision-making.
[1] Dayan, P. and Abbott, L.F. (2001) Theoretical Neuroscience: Computational and Mathematical Modeling of Neural Systems. The MIT Press, Cambridge. [2] Bellemare, Marc G., Will Dabney, and Rémi Munos. “A distributional perspective on reinforcement learning.” In International conference on machine learning, pp. 449-458. PMLR , 2017. [3] Dabney, Will, Mark Rowland, Marc Bellemare, and Rémi Munos. “Distributional reinforcement learning with quantile regression.” In Proceedings of the AAAI Conference on Artificial Intelligence, vol. 32, no. 1. 2018. [4] Dabney, W., Kurth-Nelson, Z., Uchida, N. et al. A distributional code for value in dopamine-based reinforcement learning. Nature 577, 671–675 (2020). [5] Muller, T.H., Butler, J.L., Veselic, S. et al. Distributional reinforcement learning in prefrontal cortex. Nat Neurosci (2024).
- Speaker: Changmin Yu ( Gatsby Computational Neuroscience Unit, UCL, London, UK)
- Wednesday 14 February 2024, 14:00-16:00
- Venue: CBL Seminar Room, Engineering Department, 4th floor Baker building.
- Series: Computational Neuroscience; organiser: Puria Radmard.
Fri 17 May 12:00: Title to be confirmed The host for this talk is Jeff Dalley
Abstract not available
The host for this talk is Jeff Dalley
- Speaker: Professor Johan Bolhuis, Utrecht University
- Friday 17 May 2024, 12:00-13:30
- Venue: Ground Floor Lecture Theatre, Department of Psychology.
- Series: Zangwill Club; organiser: John Mollon.
Fri 17 May 12:00: Title to be confirmed
Abstract not available
- Speaker: Professor Johan Bolhuis, Utrecht University
- Friday 17 May 2024, 12:00-13:30
- Venue: Ground Floor Lecture Theatre, Department of Psychology.
- Series: Zangwill Club; organiser: John Mollon.
Wed 06 Mar 16:00: Twenty years of sex influences on the brain: Some perspective on where we were, where we are, and where we are going
About 20 years ago my research into brain mechanisms of emotional memory drew me into an issue about which I previously had zero interest: Sex influences on brain function. As I started to recognize the issue’s enormous importance, I switched my laboratory focus towards exploring, rather than ignoring, the issue. I also began more general efforts to help neuroscience move past its biases (all of which I had shared) and recognize that ignoring the issue, while perhaps once defensible, is no longer, and what is more, that ignoring the issue must disproportionately harm women. Twenty years later the biases against the issue remain strong among many, yet the situation has also changed irreversibly for the better. As I like to put it, neuroscience has turned a corner that cannot be unturned. I will try to capture where neuroscience was on the issue (and how it got there), where it seems to be today, and why I believe the issue is here to stay.
- Speaker: Larry Cahill
- Wednesday 06 March 2024, 16:00-17:00
- Venue: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/81268825017?pwd=dndNSE9selNDTktIUGNNejZKZDFVUT09 .
- Series: ARClub Talks; organiser: Simon Braschi.
Thu 15 Feb 16:00: Towards Human Systems Biology of Sleep/Wake Cycles: Phosphorylation Hypothesis of Sleep
The field of human biology faces three major technological challenges. Firstly, the causation problem is difficult to address in humans compared to model animals. Secondly, the complexity problem arises due to the lack of a comprehensive cell atlas for the human body, despite its cellular composition. Lastly, the heterogeneity problem arises from significant variations in both genetic and environmental factors among individuals. To tackle these challenges, we have developed innovative approaches. These include 1) mammalian next-generation genetics, such as Triple CRISPR for knockout (KO) mice and ES mice for knock-in (KI) mice, which enables causation studies without traditional breeding methods; 2) whole-body/brain cell profiling techniques, such as CUBIC , to unravel the complexity of cellular composition; and 3) accurate and user-friendly technologies for measuring sleep and awake states, exemplified by ACCEL , to facilitate the monitoring of fundamental brain states in real-world settings and thus address heterogeneity in human.
By integrating these three technologies, we have made significant progress in addressing two major scientific challenges in sleep research: 1) understanding sleep regulation (sleep mechanisms) and 2) determining the role of sleep (sleep functions). With regard to sleep mechanisms, we have recently proposed the phosphorylation hypothesis of sleep, which emphasizes the role of the sleep-promoting kinase CaMKIIα/CaMKIIβ (Tatsuki et al., 2016; Tone et al., 2022; Ode et al., 2020) and the involvement of calcium signaling pathways (Tatsuki et al., 2016). According to this novel perspective, the dynamics of calcium, representing neural activity during wakefulness, can be integrated and converted into the auto-phosphorylation status of CaMKIIα/CaMKIIβ, which induces and sustains sleep (Tone et al., 2022). Concerning sleep functions, we conducted computational studies to examine synaptic efficacy dynamics during sleep and wakefulness. Our findings led to the formulation of the Wake-Inhibition-Sleep-Enhancement (WISE) hypothesis, suggesting that wakefulness inhibits synaptic efficacy, while sleep enhances it.
During this talk, we will also present our discoveries regarding the identification of muscarinic acetylcholine receptors (Chrm1 and Chrm3) as essential genes of REM sleep. Furthermore, we will discuss new insights into psychiatric disorders, neurodevelopmental disorders, and neurodegenerative disorders derived from the phosphorylation hypothesis of sleep.
This talk is hosted by Dr Keita Tamura and Dr Christian Wood
- Speaker: Dr Hiroki Ueda, University of Tokyo, RIKEN BDR
- Thursday 15 February 2024, 16:00-17:00
- Venue: Hodgkin Huxley Seminar Room, Physiology builiding, Downing Site CB2 3EG.
- Series: Foster Talks; organiser: kt532.
Mon 19 Feb 12:30: Resting State fMRI & Recent Advances
Will will stream ISMRM-23 “Advances in fMRI” Educational Course’s session on ”Resting State fMRI & Recent Advances” by Marta Bianciardi (Harvard University). Let’s watch it together and discuss it afterwards!
Abstract: FMRI is a non-invasive method that allows scientists to study the brain function during task or at rest. The BOLD contrast is the workhorse of functional neuroimaging. A cascade of physiological events following neuronal activity (changes in blood oxygenation, flow and volume) culminates in the BOLD signal. The versatility of MRI enables imaging of blood flow and volume using techniques such as Arterial Spin Labelling (ASL) and Vascular Space Occupancy (VASO) respectively. In this talk, we will learn about BOLD and non-BOLD contrasts (CBF, CBV ), discuss what they offer and how they differ in their application to human fMRI.
Venue: MRC CBU Lecture Theatre and Zoom https://us02web.zoom.us/j/82385113580?pwd=RmxIUmphQW9Ud1JBby9nTDQzR0NRdz09
- Speaker: Marta Bianciardi (Harvard University)
- Monday 19 February 2024, 12:30-13:30
- Venue: MRC-CBU, 15 Chaucer Road, Cambridge.
- Series: CBU Monday Methods Meeting; organiser: Dace Apšvalka.
Mon 18 Mar 12:30: Studies with Single Subjects or Large Numbers of Volunteers - Why, & How?
Wietske van der Zwaag (Spinoza Centre for Neuroimaging, Amsterdam) will give us a talk on ”Studies with Single Subjects or Large Numbers of Volunteers – Why, & How?”
Abstract: In the functional MRI field, datasets continue to grow. Interestingly, there are two different trends: There are currently multiple efforts towards collection of datasets with a huge number of participants, to capture the variance in a population, or to use the power of massive averaging to discover subtle brain function patterns. A second trend is towards exhaustive sampling of a single participant (or a few), arguing that measurements of one brain likely generalize to most other brains. Dense sampling allows experiments with either many conditions or extremely detailed images, exploring different types of variance. This talk will discuss both trends.
Venue: MRC CBU Lecture Theatre and Zoom https://us02web.zoom.us/j/82385113580?pwd=RmxIUmphQW9Ud1JBby9nTDQzR0NRdz09
- Speaker: Wietske van der Zwaag (Spinoza Centre for Neuroimaging, Amsterdam)
- Monday 18 March 2024, 12:30-13:30
- Venue: MRC-CBU, 15 Chaucer Road, Cambridge.
- Series: CBU Monday Methods Meeting; organiser: Dace Apšvalka.
Wed 06 Mar 15:00: Student Spotlight
Abstract not available
- Speaker: Speaker to be confirmed
- Wednesday 06 March 2024, 15:00-16:00
- Venue: Nick Mackintosch Room, Department of Psychology, Downing Site.
- Series: Social Psychology Seminar Series (SPSS); organiser: Yara Kyrychenko.
Wed 20 Mar 16:00: Title to be confirmed
Abstract not available
- Speaker: Gordon Brown (University of Warwick)
- Wednesday 20 March 2024, 16:00-17:00
- Venue: Ground Floor Lecture Theatre, Department of Psychology, Downing Site, Cambridge.
- Series: Social Psychology Seminar Series (SPSS); organiser: Yara Kyrychenko.
Mon 11 Mar 11:00: Psychological Intergroup Interventions: The Motivation Challenge NOTE: This talk is on Monday at 11 am !
Social scientists have increasingly applied insights from descriptive research to develop psychological interventions aimed at improving intergroup relations. These interventions have achieved marked success in lab and field studies—reducing prejudicial attitudes and affective polarization, fostering support for conciliatory social policies, and promoting peace-building behaviors. At the same time, intergroup conflict continues to rage in part because individuals often lack motivation to engage with these promising interventions. So far, much time and effort has been devoted to designing effective intervention content that produces psychological change, but less attention has been paid to this “motivational challenge.” We take a step toward addressing this imbalance by developing a conceptual framework of methods by which social scientists can deliver the core content of their intergroup interventions to an unmotivated target audience. Along with (a) directly motivating targets by getting them on board with the intervention’s ultimate aim, researchers can deliver the core intervention content by (b) tapping into other psychological motivations of the target audience, (c) embedding the core content in other attractive features of the intervention unrelated to the conflict, or (d) bypass motivational barriers entirely by delivering the intervention outside of targets’ conscious awareness. We define each method and use illustrative examples to organize them into a conceptual framework, before concluding with implications and future directions.
NOTE: This talk is on Monday at 11 am !
- Speaker: Eran Halperin (Hebrew University)
- Monday 11 March 2024, 11:00-12:00
- Venue: Ground Floor Lecture Theatre, Department of Psychology, Downing Site, Cambridge.
- Series: Social Psychology Seminar Series (SPSS); organiser: Yara Kyrychenko.
Tue 27 Feb 09:30: Child Development Forum Lent II
SPEAKER NAME : Jiayin Zheng
DEPARTMENT : Department of Education
SPEAKER NAME : Dr Kate Merritt
DEPARTMENT : UCL Institute of Mental Health
TALK TITLE : The impact of cumulative childhood trauma and obstetric complications on brain volume in young people with psychotic experiences
SPEAKER NAME :
DEPARTMENT :
TALK TITLE :
Child Development Forum are a series of talks bringing together researchers of infant, child and adolescent development across the University of Cambridge.
Talks are termly, and usually held at the MRC Cognition and Brain Sciences Unit (Chaucer Road).
Join the mailing list to kept up-to-date, and sign up to give a talk:
https://lists.cam.ac.uk/sympa/info/ucam-childdevforum
This talk is part of the Child Development Forum (CDF) series.
- Speaker: Speaker to be confirmed
- Tuesday 27 February 2024, 09:30-11:00
- Venue: Hybrid: Centre for Family Research, Old Cavendish Building, Rayleigh Wing (ground floor).
- Series: Child Development Forum (CDF); organiser: Giacomo.
Wed 14 Feb 15:00: Increasing access to early diagnosis and assessment of autism via objective and cost-effective eye-tracking-based tools
This presentation will focus on studies validating social visual engagement, the moment-by-moment way children look at and learn about their social surroundings, as a quantitative biomarker for autism. Leveraging this science, we have now developed and validated an eye-tracking-based tool for the diagnosis and assessment of autism in 16-30-month toddlers. Following 2 multi-site, prospective, double-blind clinical trials involving >1,600 toddlers, including 3 independent cohorts and 3 replications, this tool showed accuracy of a quantitative diagnostic classifier, and of 3 quantitative indices of severity: social disability proxying the total score of the ADOS -2, and verbal and non-verbal age equivalents proxying the verbal and non-verbal scales of the Mullen. This tool was cleared by the US FDA in July of 2023, and it has been in clinical use in the US since August of 2023. Results of the trials appeared in simultaneous publications in JAMA and JAMA Network Open in September of 2023.
- Speaker: Ami Klin, PhD, Marcus Autism Center, Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta and Emory University School of Medicine.
- Wednesday 14 February 2024, 15:00-16:00
- Venue: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/81268825017?pwd=dndNSE9selNDTktIUGNNejZKZDFVUT09 .
- Series: ARClub Talks; organiser: Simon Braschi.