The vestibular system detects head motion to coordinate vital reflexes and provide our sense of balance and spatial orientation.
To advance neuroscience discovery by uniting neuroscience, engineering and computational data science to understand the structure and function of the brain.
Understanding how the brain allows us to perceive, think and interact with the world is a monumental challenge. Kavli NDI is focused on investigating the nervous system as it relates to development, plasticity, perception and cognition across multiple observational scales and biological disciplines.
Discovery in neuroscience is increasingly dependent on the engineering-based science of building innovative tools and technology. Kavli NDI is committed to developing vanguard technologies to measure, manipulate and model the brain and behavior, in close collaboration with experimentalists and theorists.
Kavli NDI is dedicated to promoting research in mathematical and computational sciences, computing machinery, algorithms and hardware architecture necessary to convert big datasets into discovery and breakthroughs in our understanding of the brain's structure and function.
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The vestibular system detects head motion to coordinate vital reflexes and provide our sense of balance and spatial orientation.
Seminar 3 pm.
Talk Title: Probing how the hippocampus forms one-shot memories using memory expert birds
The hippocampus is critical for forming instantaneous (one-shot) memories. What happens in the hippocampus at moments of memory storage and recall? We have developed a strategy to address this question – recording the hippocampus of memory expert birds from the food-caching chickadee family. These birds prolifically hide food items in scattered locations, then return later to retrieve food using memory. We have recorded, using calcium imaging, large populations of neurons from the hippocampus during bouts of food caching and retrieving. I will present evidence for transient memory-related activity in the hippocampus, and reactivation of cache-related activity patterns preceding moments of food retrieval. I will compare this transient memory-related activity to sustained changes in hippocampal activity that have been described to occur near locations where an animal consistently receives reward. Finally, I will relate these two modes of hippocampal activity in the context of a predictive model of hippocampus function.
Seminar 3 pm.
Talk Title: Probing how the hippocampus forms one-shot memories using memory expert birds
The hippocampus is critical for forming instantaneous (one-shot) memories. What happens in the hippocampus at moments of memory storage and recall? We have developed a strategy to address this question – recording the hippocampus of memory expert birds from the food-caching chickadee family. These birds prolifically hide food items in scattered locations, then return later to retrieve food using memory. We have recorded, using calcium imaging, large populations of neurons from the hippocampus during bouts of food caching and retrieving. I will present evidence for transient memory-related activity in the hippocampus, and reactivation of cache-related activity patterns preceding moments of food retrieval. I will compare this transient memory-related activity to sustained changes in hippocampal activity that have been described to occur near locations where an animal consistently receives reward. Finally, I will relate these two modes of hippocampal activity in the context of a predictive model of hippocampus function.