Max Planck Floridas Neurotransmissions Podcast

On our final episode recorded at SfN 2017, Joe sits down with Dr. Christine Constantinople, now Assistant Professor at New York University, to discuss risk-reward learning and starting up a lab. Then Joe sits down with Dr. Matthew Lovett-Baron, postdoctoral fellow at Stanford University and soon to be Assistant Professor in the Neurobiology section at UCSD, to discuss his work using zebrafish the look at the role of neuromodulation in the regulation of escape behavior.

Our series of in the field recordings from SfN 2017 continues as Misha gets a chance to catch up again with Dr. BN Queenan (Episode 13), associate director of the UCSB Brain Initiative, to chat about the role of institutional and implicit biases in the gender inequality in academia.

Once again the podcast hit to road to meet up with new and old friends to talk all things neuroscience at the 2017 SfN meeting in Washington D.C. This week Misha sat down with Dr. Mark Burns, Associate Professor of Neuroscience at Georgetown University, to discuss traumatic brain injury and chronic traumatic encephalopathy.

How do you learn the appropriate response to a fear-inducing stimulus? Misha and Andre are joined on this episode by Dr. Andreas Lüthi, Group Leader at the Friedrich Miescher Institute for Biomedical Research in Basel Switzerland to discuss the role of the amygdala in attributing emotional significance to external stimuli and the generation of appropriate responses. Learn more about how Dr. Luthi and are combining new techniques to further dissect how the local circuits within the amygdala allow appropriate responses to be learned.

On this episode, Michael is joined by former MPFI Post-Baccalaureate Research Experience (PRE) Fellow Amber Luongo and Dr. Hisashi Umemori, associate professor of neurology at Harvard Medical School. Dr. Hisashi studies synaptic connections between neurons and how they established, refined and maintained in the nervous system. Learn more about Dr. Hisashi identifies molecules he calls synaptic organizers and the possible translational applications these molecules could have in treating neurological disorders.

On this episode, Joe and Misha are joined by Dr. Cris Niell, Associate Professor in the Department of Biology at the University of Oregon. Learn how Dr. Niell is looking at the effects of meditation in the brain, how he got interested in the visual system of the mouse, the work his lab has done on predatory behavior, and why he’s expanding into the looking at the visual system of the octopus. We’ll also finally answer the age-old question: is it octopuses or octopi?

On this episode we’re digging back into the vault to a Spring 2016 conversation Joe, Misha, and Ben had with Dr Carol Mason Professor of Pathology and Cell Biology, Neuroscience and Ophthalmic Science at Columbia University and former Society for Neuroscience President. Topics they’ll cover include the work Dr. Mason’s group is doing looking how the brain wires together during early development, the evolving landscape of neuroscience research over the years, and Dr. Mason’s advice for prospective graduate students.

What is it that defines us, nature or nurture? Michael and Andre sit down with Liqun Luo, Professor of Biology at Stanford University, to discuss the role of genetics and experience in the development of the brain. As a trained geneticist Dr. Luo uses both flies and mice to investigate the development of the nervous system. Learn more about how the olfactory system differs from other sensory modalities and the genetic tools Dr. Luo is developing and using to help investigate the roles genes play in the construction of neural circuits.

On this episode of Max Planck Florida's Neurotransmissions Podcast Misha and Paul sit down with Dr. Brenda Bloodgood, assistant professor in the Division of Biological Sciences at the University of California San Diego. Hear how Dr. Bloodgood’s path from aspiring undergraduate neuroscientist to professor informs her approach to not only her lab’s research linking gene expression to neural plasticity, but also to her philosophy of teaching and the greater role scientists can play in their communities.

On this episode of Max Planck Florida's Neurotransmissions Dr. Paul Evans, former Postdoc in the Yasuda lab and current MPFI Academic Programs Coordinator, and Dr. Audrey Bonnan, Postdoc in the Christie lab, are joined by Dr. Claudia Bagni. Dr. Bagni is the Professor and Chair in Fundamental Neuroscience at the University of Lausanne where her group has been studying the cellular and molecular mechanisms of synaptic plasticity and their dysfunction in inherited intellectual disabilities. Learn about how Dr. Bagni's research has led her beyond neuroscience into cancer research and how she has pursued opportunities to translate her research from the bench to the clinic. Enjoy!

Sometimes studying smaller, simpler problems can give us valuable insights into larger, more complex ones. On this episode of Max Planck Florida's Neurotransmissions podcast, Joe and Dan Wilson, former IMPRS student and current postdoc at Harvard, sit down with Janelia Group Leader Dr. Vivek Jayaraman to discuss his circuitous path from aerospace engineering to neuroscience. Learn how the simplest of circuits, the crab stomatogastric ganglion, inspired him to delve deeper into neural networks, and led him to study the fruit fly.

Can investigating how the neocortex is built further our understanding of the function of the brain? Join Michael and Andre as they sit down with Dr. Oscar Marin, Director and Group Leader at the Centre for Developmental Neurobiology at Kings College London to discuss how the brain is built. In a wide-ranging conversation, they explore the components that come together to build the brain, how programmed cell death may contribute to the normal development of the brain, the contribution of developmental disorders to psychiatric disorders, and adult neurogenesis.

Join Joe and Misha as they survey the neocortex with Dr. Andreas Burkhalter, Professor of Anatomy and Neurobiology at Washington University. As they discuss Dr. Burkhalter's path from studying vision in ants and pigeons to his current work studying rodent neocortex learn about the evolutionary development of neocortex, different theories underpinning sensory processing, the newly found modular organization of the rodent cortex.

On this podcast, Misha, Joe, and Matthias sit down with Dr. David DiGregorio, group leader of the Dynamic Neuronal Imaging Laboratory at Institut Pasteur, to discuss the cerebellum. From the cerebellum’s role in motor planning to the growing interest in its role in cognitive function, they will explore how Dr. DiGregorio’s model-based approaches are allowing his team to test hypotheses about the cerebellar circuit.

How does an aspiring poet become one of the pioneers of new model systems for studying the visual cortex? Find out as Joe and Ben sit down with Dr. Michael Stryker, Professor of Physiology at the University of California San Francisco, to chat about his journey through science and how graduate student-mentor relationships have evolved over time.

Using whole-cell recording techniques, Judith Hirsch investigates how the early visual pathway helps translate the visual world into a coherent perception. Fritz Sommer takes theoretical and computational approaches to understanding the basis of learning and perception in the brain. In our first dual guest podcast, Joe and Ben sit down with Dr. Hirsch and Dr. Sommer, two neuroscientists who work and live at the intersection of experimental and theoretical neuroscience. Together they explore how different approaches can often lead to divisions in thinking, how theoreticians and experimentalists have and can work together, and the current difficulties and hopeful future of data sharing.

Episode 25: Breaking the diffraction limit with Dr. Stefan Hell How does one go about breaking the laws of physics? On this podcast, Joe, Misha, and Vered sit down with Dr. Stefan Hell to discuss his path to developing super-resolution light microscopy techniques that allow researchers to see details of biology at a scale never before possible. Discover how Dr. Hell was driven to tackle the fundamental limits of resolution for light micrsocopy leading to the 2014 Nobel Prize in Chemistry, the different approaches taken to super-resolution microscopy, and his new program that is opening up freedom for early career researchers to pursue topics they are passionate about.

Driven by a lifelong love of music, Rich Mooney's career as a neuroscientist focuses on the circuits that integrate sensory and motor signals in the service of behavior. In a wide ranging interview, Joe, Misha, and Ben sit down with Dr. Mooney to discuss why the songbird is an unparalleled model organism for such a research focus. We also hear about how advances in research tools are leading to a new understanding of how other species integrate motor and auditory signals in the brain, and what this implies about our perception of speech at a philosophical level. Enjoy!

How neural circuits form the basis of complex natural behaviors is a fundamental question in neuroscience, and from an evolutionary perspective, these circuits enable the survival and reproduction of organisms from generation to generation. In our final live episode from Sunposium 2017, we sit down with two leading experts to discuss their research into behavioral neural mechanisms. First, we talk to Dr. Michael Long from NYU about his work studying vocal communication, and we learn how birdsong and speech can be studied in complementary ways to gain new insights into motor behaviors. We then talk to Dr. David Anderson from Caltech about his work studying the neural basis emotion. He describes how the brain is able to generate internal states that regulate behaviors such as fear and aggression, and how he is able to study these behaviors in both mice and flies to make use of diverse and complementary techniques.

To advance our understanding of the nervous system, we need to know how to ask the right questions about the structure and function of neural circuits. This is often facilitated by new techniques for recording, imaging, and manipulating neural activity. In this episode, we return to our series of interviews from MPFI’s 2017 Sunposium conference. We sit down with Dr. Ed Boyden from MIT and Dr. Viviana Gradinaru from Cal Tech (2016 Peter Gruss Young Investigator Award), two leading innovators in the field, to explore the intersection of tool development and experimental neurobiology.