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Title: Neural Systems Underlying Variability and Invariance in Speech and Lexical Processing: Evidence from Aphasia and Functional Neuroimaging
Presenter: Sheila Blumstein, Ph.D.
Location: 328 Mellon Institute
Title: TBA
Presenter: Robert Zatorre
Location: Baker Hall A53
Title: Sequential event memory formation and reactivation in the hippocampus and beyond.
Presenter: Matthew Wilson
Location: Mellon Institute 328
Biological Sciences Seminar
Title: Active Olfaction
Presenter: Matthew Smear, PhD.
Location: MI Conference Room 348
Biological Sciences Seminar
Title: TBA
Presenter: Aryn Gittis, PhD.
Location: MI Conference Room 348
Title: The dynamic nature of brain networks supporting speech comprehension
Presenter: Jonathan Peelle, Ph.D.
Location: Steinberg Auditorium, A53 Baker Hall
Abstract: Localizing a cognitive function to a discrete number of brain regions is an intuitively appealing way to characterize human cortical organization. For example, listening to someone speak reliably results in increased brain activity in portions of left and right temporal lobes and left inferior frontal gyrus, suggesting a core “speech network”. However, there is increasing evidence that this characterization is incomplete. I will review behavioral and neuroimaging evidence that the brain systems supporting speech comprehension vary considerably depending on the linguistic and acoustic characteristics of the speech being heard, and as a function of the cognitive and sensory abilities of individual listeners. Together these data suggest that rather than focusing on a single network of brain regions that support spoken language processing, it may be more productive to think of families of networks that can be dynamically allocated in any situation, and which can further be modified by environment, education, or therapeutic intervention.
Title: Regulation of Development in Dentate Neurons by Disrupted-In-Schizophrenia
Presenter: Ju Young Kim, Ph.D.
Location: A219B Langley Hall
Biological Sciences Seminar
Title: Cortical Dynamics are Controlled by Inhibition
Presenter: David McCormick, PhD.
Location: MI Conference Room
Title: Psychopathic Tendencies: Exploring the Mechanistic Role of Callous-Unemotional Personality Traits in the Association between CHRM2 and Trajectories of Externalizing Behavior
Presenter: Shawn J. Latendresse, Ph.D.
Location: Martin Colloquium Center (4127 Sennott Square)
Joint Psychology/LRDC Colloquium
Title: Numbers, Magnitudes and other Values: From Percept to Concept
Presenter: Richard W. Prather, Ph.D.
Location: Glaser Auditorium, LRDC
Abstract:
The current presentation includes computational and behavioral studies regarding how the neural coding of numerical magnitude influences the development of number cognition. Behavioral phenomena in the number cognition literature are often attributed to some type of cognitive-representation, such as “logarithmic number representations” or the mental number line. I will describe data regarding the neural coding of number and the way it changes with development and experience. I then describe a parsimonious mechanism for these behavioral phenomena.
Joint Psychology/LRDC Colloquium
Title: Temporal Causal Learning
Presenter: Benjamin M. Rottman, PhD.
Location: Glaser Auditorium, LRDC
Abstract:
The ability to learn causal relationships (e.g., "anxiety causes me to have insomnia", or "this blood pressure medication seems to be working") is crucial for explaining past events and choosing future actions. In this talk I will discuss how people use patterns in how variables change over time to infer causal relationships. In particular, I will discuss how people learn about causal relationships when the causal effectiveness decreases over time, how people learn about causes that interact with unobserved factors to produce an effect, and how people learn the direction of a causal relationship from observing variables over time. There is rich structure in how events unfold over time, and people readily learn about complicated causal mechanisms from temporal patterns.
Title: Recent Insights into Tinnitus Mechanisms and Sites of Generation
Presenter: James A. Kaltenbach, Ph.D.
Location: Room S123, BST-South
Title: A Nerve Activation Prediction and Control System for Closed-loop Neuromodulation
Presenter: Matthew P. Ward, Ph.D.
Location: BST3 6014
Abstract:
Vagus nerve stimulation (VNS) is a device-based therapy for treatment-resistant depression and epilepsy. Given the diverse set of autonomic functions mediated by the vagal nerves, several research groups are exploring VNS for cardiac, inflammatory and obesity control applications. Patterned recruitment of left cervical vagal nerve fiber groups mediates the therapeutic effect, but the relationships among applied stimulus parameters, nerve fiber activation, and therapeutic effect are largely undefined. The same set of stimulus parameters recruits variable proportions of vagal nerve fiber groups among device recipients, making comparisons between studies impossible and those within limited. If the effects of VNS are mediated by nerve fibers recruited in response to stimulation, then a more objective method of investigating its mechanism of action is with respect to the type, proportion and rate (or pattern) of nerve fiber activation. This methodology enables comparisons of therapeutic efficacy and biomarker level changes based on discrete, quantifiable levels of nerve fiber activation. Furthermore, it opens avenues for closed-loop control of VNS efficacy.
An Automated Nerve Control (ANC) System is presented. It is designed to control patient- or subject-specific nerve fiber recruitment through real-time, algorithm-guided adjustments to stimulus amplitude or duration. With knowledge of 1) two amplitude/duration pairs that yield maximal activation or 2) one amplitude/duration pair that yields maximal activation and a good estimate of the strength-duration time constant, the ANC System autonomously predicts the effects of all pulse amplitude/duration combinations on nerve activation. In doing so, it analogously derives all pulse amplitude/duration combinations that recruit 0-100% of A, B, or C fibers within a nerve branch or trunk. An error signal between the predicted and observed vagal A, B, or C fiber response magnitudes is used as negative feedback to adjust the stimulus charge, Q, in order to maintain nerve fiber activation at any desired or therapeutic level of nerve activation. This method compensates for any predictive errors and activation threshold changes over time. In closed-loop applications, a single adjustment to the applied pulse amplitude or width, as predicted with the ANC System, is sufficient to recruit any other proportion of all A, B, or C fibers.
If the ANC System is used in conjunction with VNS, a physician can tune the therapy based on a discrete level of nerve fiber activation or an investigator can use the level of nerve fiber activation as a pseudo-independent variable when quantifying biomarker responses to stimulation. Under this model, the stimulation frequency or pattern serves as a tuning parameter for efficacy optimization. An overview of the ANC System theory will be presented with application-specific examples.
Title: Cooperation and Human Cognition
Presenter: Michael Tomasello, PhD.
Location: G24 Cathedral of Learning (ground floor)
Reception to follow in the Center for Philosophy of Science (Room 817R)
Abstract:
Great apes cognitively represent and make inferences about their experience of the world. Humans, in addition, represent their experience propositionally and conceptually (perspectivally), and they make inferences about it recursively and reflectively. The Shared Intentionality Hypothesis posits that these uniquely human forms of cognitive representation and reasoning emerged evolutionarily as cognitive adaptations for dealing with a distinctive form of social life, specifically, a form in which individuals had to coordinate their intentional states with others in cooperative, and ultimately cultural, activities. Within these cooperative activities, early humans created shared realities (joint attention, common ground), which then enabled them to direct the attention and imagination of one another in relevant ways in acts of cooperative, and ultimately conventional, communication. Learning to cooperate and communicate within a cultural group during ontogeny creates uniquely human propositional-conceptual-reflective cognition.
Title: Characterizing the neural circuitry underlying motivated dicision-making and its collapse in addiction.
Presenter: David Moorman, PhD.
Location: BST 1695
Title: Thalamo-cortical state dynamics: Opto-molecular investigation of glial and neural substrates
Presenter: Michael Halassa, M.D., Ph.D.
Location: 1695 BST
Psychology Colloquium
Title: About Face: Categorization and Accurate Evaluation
Presenter: Eric L. Hehman
Location: 4127 Sennott Square
Abstract:
The human face conveys an abundance of information. Humans therefore specially attend to others’ faces, and are adept at accurately detecting surprisingly subtle information from them. Ultimately, how we attend to and recall others’ faces is subject to a wide variety of situational and contextual factors. My talk will include three related themes regarding face-perception, explored through explicit, implicit, and neurophysiological approaches. The first studies demonstrate that how we socially categorize the faces of others influences our recognition for them. I will additionally discuss how depth of encoding predicts whether faces will be subsequently recognized, and that physical characteristics of a face influence the attentional resources devoted to face-processing. Finally, I will present some very recent data demonstrating that individuals can accurately detect “how prejudiced” targets are, simply from viewing a photograph of their face.
Title: TBA
Presenter: Timothy Verstynen, PhD.
Location: Baker Hall A53