Virtual CNLM Summer Research Symposium
2021-08-13 10:00 - 14:00 (America/Los_Angeles) | Virtual
Join us for a virtual symposium featuring the 2021 Interns of the Irvine Summer Institute in Neuroscience. Participants will share poster presentations of their summer research projects.
Agenda
10:00am – Welcome
10:15am – Keynote Lecture by CNLM Director, Michael Yassa
11:30am – Break
12:00 – 1:40pm – Poster Session
For more information, please visit: https://cnlm.uci.edu/reu/

Nii Addy, Ph.D.
2021-09-28 11:00 - 12:00 | Herklotz Conference Center, 300 Qureshey Research Lab, Irvine, CA, United States
The CNLM will be hosting Dr. Nii Addy, Associate Professor of Psychiatry at the Yale School of Medicine, in a colloquium where he will present his latest research.
This year, the series will be held in a virtual format with some speakers presenting in-person as well. We will keep registered participants updated on the possibility of an in-person event as the situation with COVID-19 evolves.

Invite your friends on Facebook!

Embodiology®: From Ancestral Movement-Music Practices to Phenomenal Being
2021-12-02 13:00 - 20:00 | Herklotz Conference Center, 300 Qureshey Research Lab, Irvine, CA, United States
Embodiology®: From Ancestral Movement-Music Practices to Phenomenal Being
A Neuro-Arts Symposium Led by Professor S. Ama Wray and Professor Michael Yassa
When: Dec. 2, 1-2:15 pm and 7-8:30 pm PDT
Where: The Herklotz Conference Center

Melissa Sharpe, Ph.D.
2022-01-25 11:00 - 12:00 | Herklotz Conference Center, 300 Qureshey Research Lab, Irvine, CA, United States
The CNLM will be hosting, Dr. Melissa Sharpe, Assistant Professor of Behavioral Neuroscience at the University of California, Los Angeles in a colloquium where she will be presenting her latest research.

This year, the series will be held in a virtual format with some speakers presenting in-person as well. We will keep registered participants updated on the possibility of an in-person event as the situation with COVID-19 evolves.

The finding that dopamine neurons support intracranial self-stimulation (ICSS) has been taken to suggest that phasic firing of dopamine neurons is reinforcing. This is one of the last findings preventing a move away from the value hypothesis of dopamine. Yet there are almost no studies investigating the cognitive basis of ICSS. We tested how dopamine stimulation is represented in the brain during ICSS. We found that physiological frequencies did not support robust ICSS or promote behavior that would indicate the stimulation was represented as a meaningful reward in a specific or general sense. However, supraphysiological frequencies supported robust ICSS and this was associated with a representation of the stimulation as a specific sensory event that was capable of acting as a goal to motivate behavior. This demonstrates that dopamine neurons only support ICSS at supraphysiological frequencies, and in a manner that does not reflect our subjective experience with endogenous firing of dopamine neurons during learning. These data provide important considerations for the interpretation of ICSS when used to interrogate the physiological function of dopamine and other neuronal populations.

What Matters to Me & Why: Leslie M. Thompson, PhD
2022-01-25 12:00 - 13:00 | Virtual
2021-22 UCI Health Series
CNLM Fellow, Leslie M. Thompson, PhD, is a Donald Bren and Chancellor’s Professor in the Departments of Psychiatry and Human Behavior and Neurobiology and Behavior at the University of California, Irvine.
For more information on Dr. Thompson and the What Matters to Me & Why program, please visit https://chancellor.uci.edu/campus-climate/wmmw/index.php

Barry Setlow, Ph.D.
2022-02-01 11:00 - 12:00 | Herklotz Conference Center, 300 Qureshey Research Lab, Irvine, CA, United States
The CNLM will be hosting Dr. Barry Setlow, Professor of Psychiatry at the University of Florida College of Medicine, in a colloquium where he will present his latest research.
This year, the series will be held in a virtual format with some speakers presenting in-person as well. We will keep registered participants updated on the possibility of an in-person event as the situation with COVID-19 evolves.

UCI MSTP Distinguished Lecture Series - Speaker: Garret Stuber , Ph.D.
2022-02-22 16:00 - 17:00 | Telecast via Zoom, and in-person in Tamkin F110
“Neurocircuits for Motivation and Reward”, Featuring Guest Speaker: Garret Stuber, PhD
Professor, Department of Anesthesiology and Pain Medicine, University of Washington
Wednesday, February 22, 2022
4 – 5 p.m. PT
Free to attend. RSVP encouraged.
Virtual/Hybrid Event
Telecast via Zoom, and in-person in Tamkin F110
Organized by: MSTP students Dhruba Banerjee, and Heechul Jun
Event Contacts: Heechul Jun | heechulj@hs.uci.edu

2022 Irvine Brain Bee
2022-03-05 09:00 - 16:00 | Qureshey Research Laboratory, 506 C Student Center, Irvine, CA 92697, 320 Qureshey Research Lab Irvine, CA 92697-3800, Irvine, CA, 92697, United States
Join us for a day of neuroscience fun at UC Irvine! Laboratory tours, hands-on brain activities, keynote lecture and an opportunity to meet neuroscientists. The competition is a small portion of the day and we invite all high schoolers to participate regardless of how much you know about the brain!

2022 Brain Awareness Week
2022-03-14 08:00 - 2022-03-20 17:00 | Center for the Neurobiology of Learning and Memory, 320 Qureshey Research Lab, Irvine, CA, 92697, United States
Join the CNLM in celebrating Brain Awareness Week, taking place from March 14 – 20, 2022. Be sure to check: https://cnlm.uci.edu/baw/ to keep up with various events happening all week along!

Brain Awareness Week is the global campaign to foster public enthusiasm and support for brain science. Every March, partners host imaginative activities in their communities that share the wonders of the brain and the impact brain science has on our everyday lives.

Brain Awareness Week was founded by the Dana Alliance for Brain Initiatives (DABI) and the European Dana Alliance for the Brain (EDAB), and is coordinated by the Dana Foundation.

Chantal Stern, D.Phil.
2022-03-29 11:00 - 12:00 | Herklotz Conference Center, 300 Qureshey Research Lab, Irvine, CA, United States
Hippocampal-prefrontal interactions for context-dependent learning and memory
The CNLM will be hosting Dr. Chantal Stern, Professor of Psychological & Brain Sciences at Boston University, in a colloquium where she will present her latest research.
This year, the series will be held in a virtual format with some speakers presenting in-person as well. We will keep registered participants updated on the possibility of an in-person event as the situation with COVID-19 evolves.

Tirin Moore, Ph.D.
2022-04-05 11:00 - 12:00 | Herklotz Conference Center, 300 Qureshey Research Lab, Irvine, CA, United States
The CNLM will be hosting Dr. Tirin Moore, Professor of Neurobiology at Stanford University, in a colloquium where he will present his latest research.
This year, the series will be held in a virtual format with some speakers presenting in-person as well. We will keep registered participants updated on the possibility of an in-person event as the situation with COVID-19 evolves.

Lara Rangel, Ph.D.
2022-04-19 11:00 - 12:00 | Herklotz Conference Center, 300 Qureshey Research Lab, Irvine, CA, United States
The CNLM will be hosting Dr. Lara Rangel, Associate Professor of Cognitive Science at the University of California, San Diego in a colloquium where she will present her latest research.
The flexible coordination of hippocampal spiking activity in rhythms
During successful computation, brain regions must have an efficient method for filtering information from multiple sources and coordinating communication with other regions. A great system for examining this is the hippocampus, a brain structure critical for learning and memory that must integrate and associate various streams of information. Research conducted by Dr. Lara Maria Rangel suggests that successful processing of information in the hippocampus during an associative memory task is dependent on coordinated oscillatory activity, and more specifically the flexible engagement of hippocampal cells in distinct rhythmic circuits.
About Dr. Lara Rangel
Dr. Rangel is a systems neuroscientist, whose work characterizes the temporal dynamics of cross-regional oscillatory interactions and the flexible participation of neurons in local rhythmic networks during behavior.

This year, the series will be held in a virtual format with some speakers presenting in-person as well. We will keep registered participants updated on the possibility of an in-person event as the situation with COVID-19 evolves.

Duane Watson, Ph.D.
2022-05-03 11:00 - 12:00 | Herklotz Conference Center, 300 Qureshey Research Lab, Irvine, CA, United States
Understanding the link between language experience and language processing
The CNLM will be hosting Duane Watson, Ph.D., Professor of Psychology and Human Development at Vanderbilt University, in a colloquium where he will present his latest research.

Abstract: A speaker’s language environment plays an important role in language use. The language environment is critical for language learning and vocabulary growth in children, and in predicting the difficulty of processing words and sentences in adults. In this talk I will present a set of studies that will show that the relationship between language exposure and language use is complex. I will present experimental evidence suggesting that daily internet reading habits are linked to language processing skills. On the other hand, I will also present evidence showing that multiple exposures to complex sentences do not necessarily make these sentences easier to understand. Finally, I will discuss some of the ways in which the spoken language environment can play a role in language use, and will present a pilot study showing that social factors, such as a shared opinion with a conversational partner, can influence subtle linguistic factors such as speech prosody.

This year, the series will be held in a virtual format with some speakers presenting in-person as well. We will keep registered participants updated on the possibility of an in-person event as the situation with COVID-19 evolves.

2022 Spring Conference
2022-05-05 09:00 - 2022-05-06 15:00 | Herklotz Conference Center, 300 Qureshey Research Lab, Irvine, CA, United States
Since 1982, the CNLM has hosted an annual scientific conference in the spring to discuss recent advances in the field and launch new collaborations and synergies. The conferences include several themed symposia, short presentations by trainees, panel discussions, and keynote lectures. It is a crucial scientific development opportunity for students and postdocs as well as a faculty. Attendance is by invitation only (except for the triennial international conference – see 2018 below), and the program is developed by a committee of CNLM faculty fellows, including external fellows. The conferences are highly renowned for their intellectual atmosphere, use of the 50/50 discussion rule, and the special edited volumes that result from them. Typical attendance at the annual conference is between 100-120 attendees. Attendance at the 2018 meeting exceeded 1,000 scientists.
For more information, please visit: https://cnlm.uci.edu/2022-cnlm-spring-conference/

Juliet Davidow, Ph.D.
2022-05-17 11:00 - 12:00 | Herklotz Conference Center, 300 Qureshey Research Lab, Irvine, CA, United States
Adolescent learning and goal-directed behavior
The CNLM will be hosting Juliet Davidow, Ph.D., Assistant Professor of Psychology at Northeastern University, in a colloquium where she will present her latest research.
Abstract:
Adolescence is a time of dynamic psychological and brain development. Previous research has shown that normative shifts in motivational processes during adolescence can relate to negative outcomes from risky actions, driven by biased interactions among the brain’s striatocortical circuitry. However, these brain systems support a range of functions, including learning and goal-directed action selection. Could motivational and neurodevelopmental change during adolescence confer learning advantages? My work highlights how development of multiple learning and control systems in the brain contribute to different aspects of behavior, associated with both benefits and costs in performance. Using fMRI and computational modeling approaches, we revealed that adolescents can engage in better learning strategies compared to adults, a behavioral profile that is supported by stronger interactions between the striatum and the hippocampus. However, when contextual demands change, stronger learning can become disadvantageous, such as when previous learning interacts with inhibitory control – a set of processes supported by coordination among late-developing lateral and medial prefrontal cortical regions. Taken together, we illustrate both the advantages and challenges that arise from emerging functional orchestration of the brain during adolescence. This work contributes to the characterization of this time of transition from childhood to adulthood.

This year, the series will be held in a virtual format with some speakers presenting in-person as well. We will keep registered participants updated on the possibility of an in-person event as the situation with COVID-19 evolves.

2022 CNLM Awards Ceremony
2022-05-25 15:00 - 17:00 | Herklotz Conference Center, 300 Qureshey Research Lab, Irvine, CA, United States
Join the Center for the Neurobiology of Learning and Memory (CNLM) for the 2021 CNLM Awards Ceremony The CNLM offers awards to exceptional postdoctoral researchers, graduate trainees, undergraduates students, and faculty. Awardees will be presented with a plaque and $1,000 stipend and will be invited to present their work in brief Elevator Pitch format to the UCI academic community and the public at our annual CNLM Awards Ceremony.

Applications for the 2021 CNLM Awards are due in February. Stay tuned!
For more information, please visit: https://cnlm.uci.edu/awards/

Society of Behavioral Medicine Information Event: Margaret Schneider, PhD
2022-06-09 16:00 - 18:00 | Thorp Conference Center, Gross Hall, 4th Floor, Irvine, CA, 92697, United States
An introduction to the Society of Behavioral Medicine: Professional development & networking opportunities for students & early-career scientists
The Society of Behavioral Medicine has the resources and tools you need to advance your career. SBM offers networking, mentoring, continuing education, webinars, presentation opportunities, publication opportunities, a Student Special Interest Group, and much more. Join us for an information session organized by SBM leadership at UC Irvine featuring Dr. Margaret Schneider, President of the Society of Behavioral Medicine. Come to learn and network with SBM members and fellow UCI scientists from all career stages.

Alyson Zalta, Ph.D
2022-11-08 11:00 - 12:00 | Herklotz Conference Center, 300 Qureshey Research Lab, Irvine, CA, United States
Exploring morning light therapy as a novel treatment for traumatic stress
CNLM Colloquium UCI Spotlight Series
Join the CNLM in a hybrid colloquium featuring Dr. Alyson Zalta, Associate Professor of Psychological Science at UC Irvine.
Description:
Trauma contributes to a wide variety of mental health problems including posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), depression, anxiety, substance use, and suicidality. Although front-line psychotherapies and pharmacotherapies exist for traumatic stress, evidence suggests that many individuals fail to receive treatment, remain symptomatic despite treatment, or drop out of treatment before its conclusion. Uptake of these treatments is poor for several reasons including stigma, avoidance, unpleasant side effects, and poor accessibility. New treatments are needed for traumatic stress that can overcome these critical barriers to care while targeting the underlying biological mechanisms of the pathology. Morning light treatment has good potential as a novel non-invasive, low risk, scalable treatment for traumatic stress. Evidence suggests that morning light may improve traumatic stress by reducing reactivity in the amygdala, a brain region implicated in the pathophysiology of PTSD and anatomically linked to circadian photoreceptors in the eye. This seminar will describe the results of a randomized pilot trial that provides initial proof-of-concept that light treatment can improve traumatic stress and preliminary results from an ongoing randomized clinical trial aimed at evaluating the brain mechanisms underlying morning light therapy for traumatic stress.

This event will be held in-person in the Herklotz Conference Center and virtually via Zoom.

Elizabeth Head, Ph.D.
2023-01-17 11:00 - 12:00 | Herklotz Conference Center, 300 Qureshey Research Lab, Irvine, CA, United States
CNLM Colloquium UCI Spotlight Series
Join the CNLM in a hybrid colloquium featuring Dr. Elizabeth Head, Professor of Pathology at UC Irvine.
This event will be held in-person in the Herklotz Conference Center and virtually via Zoom.

Lisa Flanagan, Ph.D.
2023-01-24 11:00 - 12:00 | Herklotz Conference Center, 300 Qureshey Research Lab, Irvine, CA, United States
CNLM Colloquium UCI Spotlight Series
Regulation of early neural development by glycosylation
Join the CNLM in a hybrid colloquium featuring Dr. Lisa Flanagan, associate professor of neurology at UC Irvine.
This event will be held in-person in the Herklotz Conference Center and virtually via Zoom.

Description:
Deciphering how neural stem cells function in early development to generate the cerebral cortex will help us better understand normal and disrupted brain formation and organization. We used neural stem cells, genetic mouse models, and innovative engineering approaches to uncover a novel role for glycosylation in directing early neural development. N-linked glycosylation of the neural stem cell plasma membrane controls neuronal and astrocytic differentiation, likely through regulation of cell surface protein binding to extracellular ligands. Increased formation of cell surface highly-branched N-glycans promotes astrocyte generation whereas loss of these glycans disrupts neuron differentiation in vitro and in vivo. Glycosylation plays a critical and previously unrecognized role in cell differentiation and early brain development and may help to explain cellular responses to extracellular cues.

Irvine Brain Bee
2023-01-28 | CA
Please join us at the CNLM for the annual Brain Bee competition.
The program is directed by Manuella Oliveira Yassa and organized by a committee led by neuroscience PhD students and CNLM Ambassadors Rachael Hokenson and Winny Ning. The goal of the Irvine Brain Bee is to inspire high school students in Orange County to learn about the brain and provide opportunities for engagement with university students and professors.
The 2023 Irvine Brain Bee Competition will take place on January 28, 2023 on the UC Irvine campus. In addition to the competition itself, the day will include neuroscience demonstrations and hands-on activities as well as panel discussions and a keynote lecture. The competition is 100% free for students.
Program participants will be required to be fully vaccinated or have an approved exception prior to the program. Those with an approved exception will be required to provide proof of a negative test taken within 72 hours of the program.

Javier Diaz Alonso, Ph.D.
2023-01-31 11:00 - 12:00 | Herklotz Conference Center, 300 Qureshey Research Lab, Irvine, CA, United States
CNLM Colloquium UCI Spotlight Series
Join the CNLM in a hybrid colloquium featuring Dr. Javier Diaz Alonso, Assistant Professor of Anatomy and Neurobiology at UC Irvine.
This event will be held in-person in the Herklotz Conference Center and virtually via Zoom.

Aaron Bornstein, Ph.D.
2023-02-07 11:00 - 12:00 | Herklotz Conference Center, 300 Qureshey Research Lab, Irvine, CA, United States
CNLM Colloquium UCI Spotlight Series
Join the CNLM in a hybrid colloquium featuring Dr. Aaron Bornstein, Assistant Professor of Cognitive Sciences at UC Irvine. This event will be held in-person in the Herklotz Conference Center and virtually via Zoom. Description: Reconciling adaptive and maladaptive responses to uncertainty: Data and theory.

Kei Igarashi, Ph.D.
2023-02-14 11:00 - 12:00 | Herklotz Conference Center, 300 Qureshey Research Lab, Irvine, CA, United States
Circuit mechanisms of associative memory in health and Alzheimer’s disease
CNLM Colloquium UCI Spotlight Series
Join the CNLM in a hybrid colloquium featuring Dr. Kei Igarashi, Associate Professor of Anatomy and Neurobiology at UC Irvine.
Description:

Mounting evidence shows that dopamine in the striatum is critically involved in reward-based reinforcement learning. However, it remains unclear how dopamine reward signals influence the entorhinal-hippocampal circuit, another brain network critical for learning and memory. Using in vivo optogenetic and electrophysiological approaches, we recently found that dopamine signals from the ventral tegmental area control encoding of cue-reward association rules in the lateral entorhinal cortex (LEC) (Lee et al., Nature, 2021). Our results suggest that LEC represent a cognitive map of abstract task rules, and LEC dopamine facilitates the incorporation of new memories into this map. I would like to discuss how we can unify the roles of two central, but previously independent, players in learning – dopamine and the entorhinal-hippocampal circuit – in future studies. In the second part of the talk, I will share our results on how neuronal activities in the entorhinal-hippocampal memory circuit are lost in a mouse model of Alzheimer’s disease (Jun et al., Neuron, 2020), and discuss how the systems neuroscience approach can contribute to the understanding of Alzheimer’s disease pathogenesis.
This event will be held in-person in the Herklotz Conference Center and virtually via Zoom.

Georg Striedter, Ph.D.
2023-02-28 11:00 - 12:00 | Herklotz Conference Center, 300 Qureshey Research Lab, Irvine, CA, United States
CNLM Colloquium UCI Spotlight Series
Which model system is “best”? An argument from toxicology.
Join the CNLM in a hybrid colloquium featuring Dr. Georg Striedter, Professor of Neurobiology and Behavior at UC Irvine.
This event will be held in-person in the Herklotz Conference Center and virtually via Zoom.

Description:
As researchers seek to find treatments for various disorders, they tend to use diverse model systems, but which models are “best” for a given aim? Dr. Striedter has recently published a book on this topic and, in this talk, will discuss the challenges of model system selection from a perspective rarely mentioned at the CNLM, namely that of toxicology. As toxicologists examine whether a particular compound is toxic to humans, should they study cultured cells, mice, guinea pigs, monkeys, or (of course) multiple models? As the number of studied models goes up, what happens to the risk of obtaining false positives? Which research strategy is most cost effective? These questions have clear analogs when it comes to selecting models for research on human diseases, neurological or otherwise. Dr. Striedter will discuss these analogies briefly, using Alzheimer’s disease as a CNLM-relevant example. He intends to leave plenty of room for discussion.

New Frontiers in Depression Research & Treatments by Dr. Diego Pizzagalli - March 20 @ 4 PM
2023-03-20 16:00 - 17:00 | Herklotz Conference Center, 300 Qureshey Research Lab, Irvine, CA, United States
JOINT SEMINAR

Diego Pizzagalli, PhD
Director, McLean Imaging Center
Director, Center for Depression, Anxiety & Stress Research
Director, Laboratory for Translational & Affective Neuroscience
Director of Research, Division of Depression & Anxiety Disorders
Professor of Psychiatry
McLean Hospital / Harvard Medical School

New Frontiers in Depression Research and Treatments
Host: Tallie Z. Baram
Monday, March 20, 2023
4 – 5 pm PT
In-Person: Herklotz Conference Room

But also Telecast via Zoom
ID: 919 1700 1244, Password: [REDACTED]

VIEW ZOOM

Event Contact: James Weinstock | jweinsto@hs.uci.edu

contecenter.uci.edu & cnlm.uci.edu

Pierre Baldi, Ph.D.
2023-03-21 11:00 - 12:00 | Herklotz Conference Center, 300 Qureshey Research Lab, Irvine, CA, United States
CNLM Colloquium UCI Spotlight Series
Join the CNLM in a hybrid colloquium featuring Dr. Pierre Baldi, Distinguished Professor in the Department of Computer Science and Director of the Institute for Genomics and Bioinformatics at UC Irvine.
This event will be held in-person in the Herklotz Conference Center and virtually via Zoom.

The quest for how the brain learns

We will first showcase two cutting-edge applications of modern Artificial Intelligence (AI) in biomedical imaging and in reasoning. These applications, as well as most modern AI applications (e.g., ChatGPT, AlphaFold, AlphaGO, Google Translate, Self-Driving Cars) are based on deep learning, a modern rebranding of neural networks, or connectionist methods, dating back to the 1980s, or even the 1950s. We will then briefly review the neuroscience-inspired, tortuous, historical path that has led to deep learning, and the key discoveries made along the way, highlighting the synergies and discrepancies between neuroscience and deep learning. One key conclusion is that approximate gradient descent is essential for learning. However, the standard gradient descent algorithm of deep learning called backpropagation is not biologically-plausible for multiple reasons. We will examine these reasons one-by-one and identify biologically-plausible solutions for each one of them. In particular, we will introduce and demonstrate a general class of neural architectures and learning algorithms capable of learning from data in a largely unsupervised and asynchronous manner, without the need for symmetric connectivity.

Kevin T. Beier, Ph.D.
2023-03-28 11:00 - 12:00 | Herklotz Conference Center, 300 Qureshey Research Lab, Irvine, CA, United States
CNLM Colloquium UCI Spotlight Series
Join the CNLM in a hybrid colloquium featuring Dr. Kevin T. Beier, Assistant Professor of Physiology and Biophysics at UC Irvine.
Molecular mechanisms of memory stability and the molecular and circuit determinants of cocaine addiction
Description:
I will speak on two separate projects in our lab. First, we have uncovered the molecular mechanism by which administration of the Zeta Inhibitory Peptide (ZIP) causes memory loss. While it was previously believed that ZIP administration perturbs memory stability through disruption of constitutive kinase activity, recent studies have cast doubt on this hypothesis. However, ZIP’s effects on memory stability are robust, raising the question of what the actual mechanism is by which ZIP exerts its function. We have identified the basic molecular and pathways engaged by ZIP, and use this information to identify an inhibitor that, together with ZIP, enables bidirectional modulation of synaptic plasticity. Second, we are exploring the biological factors that influence the behavioral response to the administration of drugs of abuse. Some individuals that take drugs of abuse are susceptible to developing dependence, while others are resilient. The fundamental source of this variation is not understood. We will discuss our work implicating circuit- and molecular-level changes in the globus pallidus that facilitate individual differences in response to cocaine administration, and share the identification of a novel small molecule compound, isolated from rosemary, that blunts drug reward and volitional intake.
This event will be held in-person in the Herklotz Conference Center and virtually via Zoom.

Megan Peters, Ph.D.
2023-04-04 11:00 - 12:00 | Herklotz Conference Center, 300 Qureshey Research Lab, Irvine, CA, United States
CNLM Colloquium UCI Spotlight Series
Join the CNLM in a hybrid colloquium featuring Dr. Megan Peters, Assistant Professor of Cognitive Science at UC Irvine.
Neurocomputational approaches to the study of perceptual awareness
Description: When our brains process sensory information, they transform it into a coherent, conscious experience that we use to drive adaptive decisions and learning. In this talk I will describe several ongoing lines of research in my group that focus on understanding the neural and computational substrates of our subjective sense of the world around us. Specifically, separating the study of phenomenology from the study of signal processing capacity is challenging, so our group has been focusing on how the study of metacognitive evaluation (confidence judgements in our perceptual decisions) may shine light on these processes. Using a combination of behavior/psychophysics, computational modeling, noninvasive neuroimaging, and machine learning in humans, we seek to understand how the brain is capable of efficiently using sensory information and how this ability relates to our qualitative, phenomenal experiences.
This event will be held in-person in the Herklotz Conference Center and virtually via Zoom.

LEARNMEM2023
2023-04-26 08:00 - 2023-04-30 17:00 | Waterfront Beach Resort, 21100 Pacific Coast Highway, Huntington Beach, CA, 92648, United States
Join the Center for the Neurobiology of Learning and Memory for the 2023 International Conference on Learning and Memory (LEARNMEM™2023) on April 26-30, 2023 in Huntington Beach, CA. The Conference will be held in celebration of the 40th Anniversary of the Center for the Neurobiology of Learning and Memory (CNLM).
LEARNMEM™2023 will feature keynote talks by distinguished speakers, scientific symposia, lightning talks, open papers, poster sessions as well as professional development and networking opportunities.
The conference will have a substantial impact on the field by accelerating the pace of team science and providing a unique networking opportunity for the next generation of leaders in neuroscience.
