Neuroscience seminars

To orchestrate complex behaviors in mammals, the cerebral cortex must continuously transmit its processing results to subcortical regions. While internal cortical processing relies on highly selective sparse codes, these descending cortical output streams employ an enigmatic dense code, characterized by high firing rates and low feature selectivity. This dense population code presents a profound paradox: how can downstream regions extract precise, cognitively relevant signals when most cortical output neurons can be active at any moment? We address this paradox by testing the hypothesis that cortex does not lose information when switching to a dense code. Instead, it utilizes a mechanism for sparse-to-dense coding transformations discovered by my laboratory: thalamocortical synapses target specifically the dendritic initiation zone for calcium action potentials (APs), which enables cortical output neurons to transmit multiple information streams simultaneously via a multiplexed 1-2-3 AP syntax. I will provide first evidence that this remarkable synaptic specificity and coding syntax generalize across long-range pathways. Information coupling via an anatomically and biophysically distinct dendritic nexus may hence be a ubiquitous mechanism for sparse-to-dense coding transformations in cortex. Dissecting these mechanistic origins of cortical output streams is only now possible due to a unique in vivo – in silico approach, perfected over two decades, that my laboratory developed for bridging the gaps between dendritic and population-level computations

How do humans stabilize an inverted pendulum, and why does a balanced pole eventually fall? Drawing on 25 years of fingertip pole-balancing research, this talk examines neural correction delays: longer poles move more slowly relative to the nervous system’s response time. Delay-differential models can stabilize the upright position, yet skilled people still experience falls. The proposed explanation is microchaos arising from interactions among delay, sensory dead zones and frequency-dependent force encoding. A region of transient falling solutions lies next to stable microchaotic dynamics. Such microchaos is absent in virtual frontal-plane balancing tasks, while models of standing postural sway lack the corresponding transient regime. The comparison suggests that human falls, unlike pole falls, are more plausibly associated with medical events or slips and trips.

Lindsay N. Oberman reviews evidence for transcranial magnetic stimulation protocols in autism spectrum disorder. The seminar first explains how TMS works and how it can probe the brain mechanisms associated with autism. It then presents NIH research using repetitive TMS as an experimental therapeutic tool, examining its effects on both brain function and behaviour to guide the development of potential interventions. Online via Duke Zoom. Wednesday 7 October 2026, 16:00 EDT (America/New_York; UTC−4). Register through the event-specific Register Here link on the Duke Autism Seminar Series page to receive remote access. The presentation will not be recorded. Accommodation requests should reach the organizer at least ten days before the event. The speaker directs NIMH’s Developmental Clinical Neurophysiology and Neurostimulation Research Program.

Junjie Guo investigates how an intronic nucleotide-repeat expansion in C9orf72 causes familial and some sporadic cases of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis and frontotemporal dementia. The talk presents progress in understanding how the expansion changes gene expression, alongside functional-genomics approaches that identify potential therapeutic targets controlling expression of the pathogenic mutation. It also considers which mechanisms and modifiers extend to other disease-causing repeat expansions. Guo is Associate Professor of Neuroscience at Yale School of Medicine; the seminar is hosted by J. Wren Kim. Online via CUNY ASRC Zoom. Thursday 8 October 2026, 12:00–13:00 EDT (America/New_York; UTC−4). Follow the Zoom link on the official seminar page; meeting details are also supplied in its abstract PDF. Organized by the Advanced Science Research Center at the CUNY Graduate Center, Neuroscience Initiative. This listing advertises remote attendance.

Takaki Komiyama presents longitudinal imaging and circuit-manipulation studies of history-dependent decision-making. The work identifies retrosplenial-cortex populations and local and long-range interactions that maintain option values across trials, update them after outcomes and translate past experience into future choices.

Shantanu Jadhav presents work on coordinated hippocampal-prefrontal activity and the neural mechanisms that support memory-guided cognition and decisions. The seminar draws on systems electrophysiology and circuit analysis to connect distributed network dynamics with behavior.

Matthew J. Girgenti discusses how research on individual brain cells and the three-dimensional organization of DNA is changing the biological understanding of post-traumatic stress disorder. The seminar examines how these approaches reveal trauma-associated brain changes and identify possible targets for more effective, personalized treatments. Girgenti is a neuroscientist in Yale School of Medicine’s Department of Psychiatry. Jeffrey Borenstein moderates this Meet the Scientist session. Online via the BBRF Zoom webinar. Tuesday 13 October 2026, 14:00 EDT (America/New_York; UTC−4). Follow Register Today on the organizer’s event page to the event-specific Zoom form. Advance registration is available to researchers, students, healthcare providers, mental-health organizations, patients and family members.

Tatsuya Osaki examines vascular contributions to autism spectrum disorder, focusing on blood–brain barrier integrity and cerebral blood-flow dynamics during early development. Rett syndrome provides a starting point: MeCP2 mutations impair endothelial function, suggesting that vascular cells themselves contribute to disease mechanisms. A three-dimensional microphysiological model built from human induced pluripotent stem cells recreates blood–brain barrier structure and function. Patient-derived endothelial cells form perfusable microvascular networks but show impaired barrier function, a finding independently corroborated in MeCP2-knockout mice. Transcriptomic analyses implicate increased miR-126 expression and disrupted tight junctions; inhibiting miR-126-3p restores barrier function and identifies a potential therapeutic target. The work is extending to hemodynamic changes in other autism subtypes, with two-photon imaging providing in-vivo cross-validation, to identify shared neurovascular mechanisms and candidate interventions.

Vinod Menon examines the brain's default mode network as a foundation for autobiographical memory, self-related processing, and consciousness, and considers how these functions compare with current artificial intelligence systems. The virtual session is part of Stanford's Contemplation by Design Summit.

Ta-Wei Guu examines whether continuous data from wearable devices can reveal aspects of older adults’ depression and dementia that conventional clinical assessments miss. The session covers behavioural patterns, sleep disruption and treatment responses measured outside clinical settings, and considers how repeated observations can track changes in health over time. Guu also presents plans for a technology-enabled longitudinal cohort to study ageing populations over months and years, discussing how the resulting patterns could inform research and clinical practice. The session includes questions and discussion. Guu is an assistant professor and consultant psychiatrist at CMUBH in Taiwan, with an affiliation to King’s College London. Online via Dementia Researcher Communities livestream. Wednesday 21 October 2026, 12:00–12:45 BST (Europe/London; UTC+1). This free event requires a Dementia Researcher Communities account: open the event page, sign in or create an account, and RSVP to access the livestream. Organized by Dementia Researcher, delivered by University College London.

Richard L. Huganir discusses research on the molecular mechanisms that regulate glutamate receptors, the brain's major excitatory neurotransmitter receptors, and thereby modulate communication between neurons.

Reproducible research can turn scientific observations into reliable, reusable knowledge. This talk presents ReproNim and related community infrastructure for sharing data and computational workflows. It examines versioned, re-executable analysis at scale using OpenNeuro, together with harmonization and querying across dozens of research sites. ReproLakes and ReproPonds combine public and private metadata stores with FAIR and reproducible practices to improve discovery and reuse. The discussion addresses both technical obstacles and research-culture challenges, offering practical approaches for making shared scientific resources more useful and accelerating cumulative discovery.

Chaoyi Zhang presents a method for observing distributed social-brain networks in awake marmosets during natural social interaction. Prefrontal, cingulate, striatal, thalamic and amygdala circuits are implicated in autism and other neuropsychiatric conditions, but have rarely been measured together during genuine primate social behavior. The platform replaces part of the skull with an acoustically transparent implant, enabling volumetric functional ultrasound measurements of cortical and subcortical activity at approximately 150-micrometre resolution. A whole-brain vascular reference and automated registration permit comparisons across roughly 50 atlas-defined regions, sessions and animals. Experiments show that a live social partner produces stronger and more extensive activity than video of the same partner. The talk considers applying this approach to genetically tractable, transgenic marmoset models of autism risk genes to identify altered network signatures and evaluate their potential as circuit-level biomarkers.

Why do dorsal raphe serotonin neurons respond to reward, surprise, salience and uncertainty in ways that resist a single explanation? This talk proposes that serotonin activity encodes prospective value: a prediction of cumulative future reward. The model is motivated by the unusually strong and persistent spike-frequency adaptation of these neurons, which may support efficient and accurate predictions. It reproduces important qualitative features of serotonergic responses that earlier models miss and predicts measured in vivo firing rates more accurately than competing accounts. By treating previously separate responses as manifestations of one prospective value code, the work connects serotonin physiology to its computational roles in learning and behaviour.

The brain adjusts its internal activity to direct visual and auditory attention and regulate responses to external stimuli. Appropriate endogenous activity may support normal cognition and behaviour, while its modulation can also produce dysfunction. Beginning with mathematical models of general anaesthesia, this talk examines how changes in noisy endogenous activity can fragment functional brain organization and account for loss of consciousness. Anaesthesia experiments in ferrets support the theoretical result. Further experimental examples are discussed to show how underlying internal noise may help explain observed transitions between brain states.

Kuan Hong Wang examines how dopaminergic, cannabinoid, and neuroimmune signaling regulate circuit plasticity across development, experience, and disease, and how cross-species work may inform selective therapies.

John N. Constantino and Jeffrey Borenstein examine how individualized education planning can support children with developmental, behavioral and mental-health challenges. Educators and counselors often recognize difficulties early, and the extensive time children spend at school offers a major opportunity to support maturation alongside clinical care. The discussion explores the complexities of individualized education plans and how educators and clinicians can apply precision-medicine approaches to tailor them to each child, making everyday school experiences more effective for development and adaptation.