Theme A – Development

Theme B – Neural Excitability, Synapses, and Glia

Theme C – Neurodegenerative Disorders and Injury

Theme D – Sensory Systems

Theme E – Motor Systems

Theme F – Integrative Physiology and Behavior

Theme H – Cognition

Theme A – Development

The Neuronal Cytoskeleton — Nexus for Signaling, Development, and Plasticity

Chair: Melissa Rolls, PhD

Pennsylvania State University

Co-Chair: Anthony J. Koleske, PhD

Yale University

This symposium will showcase the cellular infrastructure that supports neuronal development, stability and plasticity. The neuronal cytoskeleton is exquisitely regulated to balance long-term structural maintenance with the ability to make and break connections and repair damage. Speakers will address key questions about cytoskeletal regulation in development, signaling, disease and injury using multiple experimental approaches in vertebrate and invertebrate neurons.

Theme B – Neural Excitability, Synapses, and Glia

Beyond the Textbook — Novel Perspectives in Axonal Function and Plasticity

Chair: Alanna J. Watt, PhD

McGill University

Co-Chair: Maren Engelhardt, PhD

Medical Faculty Mannheim, Heidelberg University

When SfN formed 50 years ago, it was already known that axons propagate information in the form of action potentials across the nervous system. Although axonal impairment has long been known to be devastating for brain function in disease, until recently it was thought that axons showed minimal plasticity in healthy brains. This symposium will highlight recent advances in mechanisms controlling axonal function, how these mechanisms are plastic, and how axonal plasticity impacts brain function.

Liquid-Liquid Phase Separation in Physiology and Pathophysiology of Nervous System

Chair: Yasunori Hayashi, MD, PhD

Kyoto University Graduate School of Medicine

Co-Chair: Mingjie Zhang, PhD

Hong Kong University of Science and Technology

Molecules within cells are segregated into functional domains to form various organelles. While some of these organelles are delimited by lipid membranes demarcating their constituents, others lack any membrane. Recently, liquid-liquid phase separation (LLPS) has revolutionized our view of how segregation of macromolecules can form membrane-less organelles. This symposium will present data showing what role LLPS plays and how it can change views of the physiology and pathophysiology of the nervous system.

Theme C – Neurodegenerative Disorders and Injury

Emerging Roles of the Lysosome in Neurodegenerative Disease

Chair: Hui Zheng, PhD

Baylor College of Medicine

Co-Chair: Ralph Nixon, MD, PhD

Nathan S. Kline Institute

Emerging evidence demonstrates that lysosomes actively coordinate multiple cellular processes through their nutrient- and stress-sensing and nuclear-signaling abilities. Lysosome function declines with aging and contributes to the accumulation of pathological proteins in Alzheimer’s disease and other neurodegenerative disorders. This symposium will address novel mechanisms regulating lysosome function and approaches that harness innate lysosomal sensing to promote toxic protein clearance.

New Insights Into the Neurobiology of Repeat Expansion Diseases

Chair: Henry L. Paulson, MD, PhD

University of Michigan

Over 40 neurological diseases are caused by repeat expansions, including Huntington’s disease, motor neuron disease, frontotemporal dementia and ataxia. Advances in genetics have outpaced our understanding of the underlying neurobiology, leading to a current lack of therapies for these fatal diseases. This symposium will review new insights into how expanded repeats perturb multi-level function of the nervous system and discuss how emerging knowledge is driving creative and novel treatment strategies.

Theme D – Sensory Systems

Neuroscience of Sensing and Controlling Bladder Function

Chair: Margot S. Damaser, PhD

Cleveland Clinic Lerner Research Institute

Co-Chair: Tyler Best, PhD

National Institute of Health

This symposium will describe the advances in understanding bladder afferent and efferent innervation, as well as emerging technologies that monitor bladder state. Discussions will highlight principles relating nerve activity patterns to organ state and function using novel engineered pressure, volume and nerve activity sensors. In addition, the identification of potential peripheral nerve targets and development of novel neuromodulation therapies for lower urinary tract dysfunction will be discussed.

Structural Basis of Sensation

Chair: Emily R. Liman, PhD

University of Southern California

Our sensory systems provide us with some of life’s greatest pleasures and, when they go awry, our most harrowing experiences. This symposium will explore some of the lesser-understood senses of touch, taste, and hearing. The speakers will describe the discovery and function of molecules that serve as sensory receptors or sensory transducers, including their clinical relevance.

Theme E – Motor Systems

Neurorehabilitation in the 21st Century — Managing Plasticity

Chair: Jonathan R. Wolpaw, MD

Stratton Veterans Administration Medical Center

Co-Chair: Aiko K. Thompson, PhD

Medical University of South Carolina

Neurorehabilitation, one of the most vibrant areas of neuroscience, has lacked a comprehensive strategy. This symposium will show how new basic science insights into the mechanisms that enable the healthy central nervous system to acquire and maintain all the skills that lead to the Negotiated Equilibrium Model, which provides a powerful strategy for initiating and guiding widespread beneficial plasticity. Speakers will review the science leading to the strategy, the exciting results of its first human trials, and computer modeling to develop new treatment protocols.

Spinal Interneurons and Neuroplasticity After Injury or Disease

Chair: Michael A. Lane, PhD

Drexel University College of Medicine

Co-Chair: Lyandysha V. Zholudeva, PhD

Gladstone Institutes

As interest in neuroplasticity increases and novel treatments are being developed to harness its potential, spinal interneurons have been identified as a key therapeutic target in the treatment of spinal cord injury and degenerative disease. This symposium will highlight our current understanding of spinal interneuron heterogeneity, their contribution to control and modulation of motor and sensory functions, how that role might change after traumatic spinal cord injury, and how treatments can be used to optimize their contribution to functional improvement.

Theme F – Integrative Physiology and Behavior

Internal Brain States and the Dynamics of Behavior

Chair: Mala Murthy, PhD

Princeton University



Internal brain states are the evolving prism through which external information and inner goals shape animal behavior. This prism has been difficult to study because it cannot be observed from outward behavior alone. New work that leverages quantitative behavioral analysis, computational modeling, and population neural recordings is beginning to shed light on the nature of dynamic internal states. The four speakers are leaders in this research area and will share their latest findings.

Memory in the Light of Single Neuron Recordings in Humans

Chair: Ueli Rutishauser, PhD

Cedars-Sinai Medical Center

Co-Chair: Johannes Sarnthein, PhD

University Hospital of Zürich

Intracranial recordings from patients with epilepsy provide an unprecedented opportunity to study the human memory system at the level of individual neurons and networks thereof. This symposium will provide new insights into the building blocks of episodic memory (including concept cells); single-trial learning; the ways by which associations are encoded; the ways by which memories are retrieved and used for decisions; and the role of persistent activity in the medial temporal lobe in working memory.

Mitochondrial and Metabolic Substrates of Cellular, Circuit, and Complex Behavioral Responses to Stress

Chair: Ilia N. Karatsoreos, PhD

University of Massachusetts, Amherst

Co-Chair: Gretchen N. Neigh, PhD

Virginia Commonwealth University

There is high mechanistic overlap between metabolic and behavioral dysfunction. This symposium will present data that demonstrate that altering metabolism via environmental manipulations changes neural circuits important in regulation of social behavior, mood, and cognition. Speakers will show how environmental stressors, which increase susceptibility to mood disorders, impact peripheral and neural metabolic processes at the cellular level. Particular focus will be placed on mitochondria as a neurometabolic hub.

Theme H – Cognition

Estrogens Across the Adult Female Lifespan — Rapid and Chronic Influences of Estrogens on Structural Plasticity, Memory, and Disease

Chair: Karyn M. Frick, PhD

University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee

Estrogens influence neural function in critical ways throughout the adult female lifespan that can significantly impact cognition, affect, and recovery from brain injury. Of note, reproductive experience and age can drastically affect the response to estrogens. This symposium will review recent evidence that estradiol can act both rapidly and chronically to affect brain function, memory, and affective behaviors in young and aging female rodents.

Noncanonical Hippocampal Memory Circuits

Chair: Thomas J. McHugh, PhD

RIKEN Center for Brain Science

Memory research has long focused on the excitatory connections linking the hippocampus and entorhinal cortex. Recent work has begun to consider noncanonical circuits, including some long-ignored subcortical inputs and outputs, that have the ability to shape hippocampal function and bias circuit output. This symposium will highlight current work along these lines and touch on common motifs that shape memory.