Lectures

Dialogues Between Neuroscience and Society — Nicolas Quillé

Description coming soon.

Special Lecture: Memories and Engrams in Mice — Sheena A. Josselyn

Memory may be defined as the retention over time of internal representations gained through experience, and the capacity to reconstruct these representations at later times. Long-lasting physical brain changes (“engrams”) are thought to encode these internal representations. The speaker’s lab is interested in understanding how engrams may be formed, and how neuronal membership in an engram ensemble may change over time or with new experience. This lecture will describe data in their efforts to understand memories in mice and humans.

SfNova Lecture: Brandon J. Henderson; Jordan Squair

The Flavor Factor: How Chemical Additives Influence Nicotine Addiction in Tobacco and Vaping
Brandon J. Henderson, PhD
Marshall University
Theme H: Motivation and Emotion
Combustible cigarette smoking has slowly declined below 12% in America. However, the use of electronic cigarettes has increased tremendously. While nicotine is the main addictive component of tobacco products and a primary concern in electronic cigarettes, the majority of vaping products include chemical flavorants in addition to nicotine. This lecture will summarize preclinical investigations that focus on how chemical flavors alter neurons and brain circuits relevant to nicotine addiction-related behaviors.

The Molecular Logic of Paralysis
Jordan Squair, MD, PhD
Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (EPFL), University Hospital Lausanne (CHUV)
Theme G: Integrative Physiology and Behavior
Single cell and spatial transcriptomic technologies have revealed the molecular logic of spinal cord injury across species. This lecture will highlight the importance of methods development to dissect multicellular responses to trauma in comparative single cell datasets, describe how recovery-organizing neurons enable recovery after paralysis, and discuss how this understanding is guiding molecular approaches to reverse engineer paralysis in order to design new gene therapies.

Presidential Special Lecture: Cognition Emerges From Neural Dynamics — Earl K. Miller

Classic models likened brain function to neuron networks, like telegraphsystems. Emerging evidence, however, suggests higher cognition relies onrhythmic oscillations or "brain waves" at the electric field level.This expands functionality, with "telegraph wires" also producing"radio waves" (electric fields) that rapidly spread influence. Thesefields may facilitate large-scale organization, enabling executive control andenergy-efficient analog computing.

Special Lecture: Microglia Process Dynamics: Synapse Formation, Neuronal Activity, and Rescue — Junichi Nabekura

In the intact brain, microglia engage in highly dynamic surveillance through the continuous movement of their fine processes. This session will highlight recent advances in our understanding of microglial process interactions with synapses and neurons. Accumulating evidence suggests that these transient contacts are not passive observations but actively contribute to the regulation of synaptic transmission, plasticity, and circuit remodeling in both healthy and diseased states.

Clinical Neuroscience Lecture: The Pathogenesis of Cerebral Small Vessel Disease and Vascular Cognitive Impairment — Anne Joutel

Cerebral small vessel disease (cSVD) encompasses a heterogeneous group of diseases caused by in situ damages of small brain vessels commonly related to aging, hypertension, or genetic factors. cSVD causes a quarter of all ischemic strokes, the majority of spontaneous hemorrhages, and accounts for 20% or more of all dementia. The speaker will provide a comprehensive and critical appraisal of the biggest advances in our understanding of how cSVD affects the structure and function of small brain vessels, causes brain lesions, and alters cognition.

Special Lecture: Emotional Learning and the Primate Amygdala: From Adaptive Behaviors to Psychopathologies — Rony Paz

Our brains are equipped with specialized circuits to process negative emotional experiences. While essential for adaptive behavior and survival, these circuits can also drive maladaptive behavior and psychopathologies such as anxiety and post-traumatic stress disorder. The lecture explores how emotional learning and neural representations in the amygdala and prefrontal cortex of human and nonhuman primates shape adaptive responses, yet may also contribute to mental health disorders.

Special Lecture: Mechanisms Linking Human Neuron Development, Evolution, and (Dys)function — Pierre P. Vanderhaeghen

The human cerebral cortex underwent rapid changes during recent hominid evolution, leading to the emergence of Homo Sapiens specialized cognitive and social skills. Here the speaker will discuss the molecular and cellular mechanisms underlying the evolution of cortical circuits, including human-specific gene regulatory programs and species-specific cellular features, such as metabolism. Human-specific modifiers of cortical neuron development and function shed light on human evolution, with unexpected links to brain diseases.

Presidential Special Lecture: The Importance of Synapses in Alzheimer's Disease — Tara Spires-Jones

Alzheimer’s disease is one of the most pressing medical issues of our time. In this lecture, Tara Spires-Jones, DPhil, FMedSci discusses advances in understanding the role of synapses in disease pathogenesis, including the accumulation of pathological proteins within synapses, the involvement of glia in synapse degeneration, and trans-synaptic spread of pathology through the brain. The lecture explores the importance of understanding synaptic pathology for developing life-changing treatments.

Special Lecture: From Foraging to Flashbacks: The Neural Basis of Spatial Memory and Mental Time Travel — Nanthia Suthana

Memory enables both navigation and the mental reconstruction of past experiences, playing a crucial role in learning and decision-making. While generally adaptive, this process can become dysregulated, leading to intrusive flashbacks in post-traumatic stress disorder. This lecture will present findings from human intracranial recordings, focusing on the hippocampus and related regions, to reveal how neural activity during real-world navigation and memory recall underlies both memory function and its pathological disruptions.

Special Lecture: Motor Cortex Circuits for Learned Movements — Takaki Komiyama

The brain refines its movement-generating circuit through motor learning. This lecture will explore neural circuit mechanisms underlying the generation of learned movements, focusing on the circuits centered around the primary motor cortex in mice. The lecture will also discuss synaptic plasticity rules that contribute to the refinement of the neural circuit for learned movements.

Special Lecture: Transmission of Misfolded Proteins in Neurodegenerative Disorders: A Common Mechanism of Disease Progression — Virginia M. Y. Lee

Misfolded pathological protein aggregates formed by disease-specific proteins are common features of neurodegenerative diseases. They cause neuronal dysfunction directly or indirectly. This lecture will discuss the transmission models of tauopathies, synucleinopathies, and TAR DNA-binding protein 43 (TDP-43) proteinopathies that have been developed and used to test the “transmission” hypothesis and the “strain” hypothesis to elucidate mechanisms of progressive spread of neurofibrillary tangles (NFTs), Lewy bodies (LBs), and TDP-43 aggregates and the molecular basis of strain heterogeneity.

Albert and Ellen Grass Lecture: Making Sense of Touch — David D. Ginty

Our relationship with the physical world is rich, complex, and essential for life. This lecture will explore the properties and functions of the physiologically distinct types of touch sensory neurons, the Low-Threshold Mechanoreceptors (LTMRs), as well as high-threshold mechanoreceptors (HTMRs) and other somatosensory neuron types. This lecture will also discuss the organizational logic of sensory neuron synapses in the spinal cord and the subcortical circuitry underlying early stages of tactile feature representation, pain information processing, and sensory-motor reflexes.

Presidential Special Lecture: Sex Differences in the Brain are Misunderstood — Catherine S. Woolley

Sex differences in the brain are real, but they’re not what many people think of when they hear about them. This lecture will discuss some of the historical and current controversies surrounding sex differences in the brain; present evidence for different types of brain sex differences with an emphasis on molecular mechanisms of synaptic modulation; and explain the value of studying both sexes to ensure that advances in science and medicine have maximal impact for human health.

Special Lecture: Microglia in Brain Construction and Maintenance — Sonia Garel

Microglia, the resident immune cells of the brain, are traditionally known for their roles in immune surveillance, repair, and synapse regulation. This lecture will focus on recent research uncovering novel roles for microglia in the early brain, particularly in wiring, circuit assembly, and tissue integrity. Understanding these developmental roles provides a framework for decoding microglial functions throughout life and their impact on brain physiology and pathology, from neurodevelopmental disorders to neurodegenerative diseases.

David Kopf Lecture on Neuroethics: Designing Globally Inclusive and Ethically Deliberate Neurofutures — Karen S. Rommelfanger

Unlike any other organ, the brain’s role in identity, agency, and experience makes it biologically and culturally unique. The transformative potential of global neuroscience demands robust, integrated ethical engagement across the research life cycle. This talk advocates a proactive “neuroethics-by-design” approach and presents five key neuroethical questions to guide responsible, inclusive, and globally responsive neuroscience. The commitment and actions of today’s neuroscientists have the power to shape tomorrow’s society for everyone.

Special Lecture: The Brain-Immune Ecosystem: Immunotherapy Empowers the Immune System to Defeat Alzheimer’s Disease — Michal Schwartz

The lecture will cover the speaker's 25-year journey from concept to clinical application, including the transformed understanding of brain-immune relationships; peripheral immunity dysfunction as a catalyzer in brain aging and Alzheimer’s disease; immunotherapy that boosts systemic immunity by transiently blocking inhibitory immune checkpoints restores brain immune support, mitigating inflammation, toxic protein buildup, senescent cells, and neuronal loss, thereby arresting cognitive decline.

History of Neuroscience Lecture: The Troubled History of the Emotional Brain — Joseph E. LeDoux

As a young scientist in the young discipline of neuroscience, Dr. LeDoux saw the dearth of emotion research in the field as low-hanging fruit. Work that he and others did in the 80s and early 90s helped pave the way for a new neuroscience of emotion. But over time he came to believe that much of the research was not about emotion itself, a problem than began with Darwin, and that later impaired efforts to treat mental disorders. This lecture will explore his view of what emotion is and is not.

Presidential Special Lecture: Neuronal Aging: A Major Risk for Cognitive Decline in Humans — Fred H. Gage

This lecture will address the question: Why do we lose cognitive capacity and function as we age? New cellular models of human brain aging have led to a more comprehensive understanding of the cellular and molecular mechanisms that underly brain aging. Energy metabolism, inflammation, and genome instability combine to drive cognitive decline in age and disease. 

Special Lecture: Power Play: How the Immune, Endocrine, and Social Systems Collaborate to Sculpt Neural Development — Margaret M. McCarthy

Critical periods direct neural trajectories that diverge as a function of sex, endocrine status, metabolism, or exposure to essential stimuli. Brain sexual differentiation is mediated by early life exposure to hormones, modified by immune cells, and programs adolescent social play behavior thereby creating an additional critical window in that play deprivation dysregulates adult sociosexual behaviors. Other immune-defined epochs create a rich tapestry of interwoven and unique neurodevelopment. This lecture will review known and new critical periods in the rodent brain.

Special Lecture: Learnt and Inbuilt Neural Control of Innate Behavioral Strategies — Sonja B. Hofer

To survive in evolving environments with uncertain resources and risks, animals need to dynamically adapt their behavior and exhibit flexibility in choosing appropriate strategies, such as staying safe from predators, exploring their environment, or exploiting known resources. The lecture will explore how the brain implements and switches between such fundamental behavioral strategies, focusing on subcortical neural circuits for flexible behavioral control.

Special Lecture: Spying on Neuromodulator Dynamics In Vivo by Constructing Multi-Color Genetically-Encoded Sensors — Yulong Li

Neuromodulators are essential for brain functions such as perception, motion, learning, and memory, and are implicated in neurological disorders. Understanding these processes requires real-time monitoring of neuromodulator dynamics. The speaker will introduce the development of multi-color G-protein-coupled receptors (GPCR)-activation-based (GRAB) sensors with high spatiotemporal resolution and discuss how spectrally expanded sensors enable simultaneous detection of multiple neurochemicals in vivo in different animal models, offering new insights into the neuromodulatory system.

Special Lecture: Deep Decisions: Uncovering the Subcortical Role in Perceptual Choice — Michele A. Basso

Understanding of how the mammalian brain makes decisions centers largely on the integrative functions of the cerebral cortex. Yet organisms lacking a cerebral cortex can combine information from different sources to make decisions. This lecture will focus on the roles of the superior colliculus and basal ganglia in perceptual decision-making. The emerging view is that deep brain structures play a critical role in flexible, goal-directed choices and cognitive control.