The New Center for Brains, Minds and Machines

Introduction to the new Center for Brains, Minds and Machines

Calendar

December 2021

Mon

Tue

Wed

Thu

Fri

Sat

Sun

HBI: Invasive Brain …
HBI: Invasive Brain Stimulation Therapies 101

December 1, 2021 5:30 pm - 6:45 pm

Invasive Brain Stimulation Therapies 101
Wednesday, December 1st, 2021
12:30 to 1:45pm

featuring:
Mark Richardson, MD, PhD
Director, Functional Neurosurgery, Mass. General Hospital

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Systems Club
Systems Club

December 2, 2021 5:15 pm - 6:15 pm

This Thursday - 12/02 - Dionnet Bhatti from the Anthony lab will be presenting his talk: "Encoding of learned threat and avoidance in lateral septum."

"For all living organisms, motivated behaviors are critical to survival. The motivated drive to avoid danger, in particular, involves a remarkable ability to react to and cope with potential threats. In order to adaptively respond to potential threats, an animal must first detect and evaluate sensory stimuli and link that information to action. In mammals, the lateral septum (LS) has long been known as a hub that mediates behavioral responsivity to environmental stimuli. Many of these studies, however, are conflicting and rely on region-wide lesions and electrical stimulations. Thus, the precise role in how the LS mediates behavioral responses to sensory stimuli remains largely unknown. In this talk, I will describe experiments using microendoscopic calcium imaging, statistical modeling, and optogenetics during a conditioned avoidance task that suggest a role for a subset of LS neurons expressing the stress-related neuropeptide receptor gene Crhr2 (LS^Crhr2) in detecting and evaluating conditioned threats to initiate adaptive action in response. I will also describe works-in-progress that will attempt to dissect how and what information is used to construct threat representations in LS^Crhr2neuron activity via its afferent connectivity."

Please join us at 12:15pm on Zoom or in Warren Alpert 236! If you would like to attend in person, please be aware that masks will be required at all times and no eating or drinking is allowed in the room.

Here is the Zoom link!

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Theory lunch: Why (a…
Theory lunch: Why (and how) is there sexual dimorphism?

December 3, 2021  5:30 pm - 6:30 pm

Theory Zoom will be held on 12/3 from 12:30-2PM with Josie Clowney and to help recreate the atmosphere of Theory Lunch, the Zoom will be open at 12PM. Feel free to bring your lunch, a snack and/or drink. The talk will officially begin at 12:30PM.

Topic: Theory Zoom with Josie Clowney 12/3

Time: Dec 3, 2021 12:30 PM Eastern Time (US and Canada)

Join Zoom meeting

https://harvard.zoom.us/j/92115685838?pwd=VWsweW5OT2xtR0tKUkVvd3dJWFVEUT09

Password: theory

Join by telephone (use any number to dial in)

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International numbers available: https://harvard.zoom.us/u/acADLRTX2n

One tap mobile: +13126266799,,92115685838# US (Chicago)



Join by SIP conference room system

Meeting ID: 921 1568 5838

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Why (and how) is there sexual dimorphism?

Josie Clowney
Department of Molecular, Celluar and Developmental Biology
University of Michigan, Ann Arbor

Abstract

Sexual reproduction is pervasive among multicellular organisms. Combining gametes increases genetic diversity and thus species resilience by mixing alleles. In most organisms, distinct morphs – sexes – produce a large gamete (the egg) or a small gamete (the sperm). Egg and sperm are able to come together via the evolution of physical systems of mating; because the gametes are different, the different sexes that make them have different anatomies and perform distinct mating behaviors to unite them. The sexual morphs of a species develop via distinct transcriptional regulation of a common genome. I will focus on the logical principles by which concise gene regulatory systems that determine sex result in remarkably complex sexual dimorphisms in the brain.

In insects, the presence of a Y chromosome in males sparks a cascade of sex-specific splicing events. This sex differentiation system uses only five genes. Two of these, doublesex and fruitless, are ultimately produced in distinct male and female versions that sex the body (doublesex) and the brain (fruitless). fruitless plays the remarkable role of exerting sex differences in the anatomy, connectivity, or physiology of dozens of disparate groups of neurons. Many or all of these neurons control sex-typical behaviors including mating, aggression, and egg-laying. I will discuss our on-going work on neuronal transcriptional regulation by fruitless and consider models by which just one factor can generate both female-specific and male-specific neurons, neural circuits, and behaviors.

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Theory club: Emergen…
Theory club: Emergent dynamics in high throughput neural data

December 3, 2021 6:30 pm - 7:30 pm

We are very pleased to announce that our next speaker will be Ilya Nemenman, whose talk is entitled "Emergent dynamics in high throughput neural data" (abstract below).
As a reminder, the talk will take place at 12:30pm CT/1:30pm ET/10:30am PT on Friday, December 3rd. You can join the talk via Zoom using the link or meeting ID provided below. Note that the meeting link and ID are different than for the previous meeting.

If you weren't able to attend last time, you can find recording of previous seminars our Youtube channel.
See you then!

Ilya Nemenman, Professor of Physics and Biology at Emory University
Title: Emergent dynamics in high throughput neural data
Abstract: Modeling in biology has firmly established itself in cases where it’s been possible to reduce a system to a relatively small number of constitutive parts (think of population dynamics models with a few species, or biophysical neural models with a handful molecular species involved). In contrast, modern experiments often measure activity of thousands of parts of a studied system, such as activities of hundreds of neurons, or frequency of hundreds of pathogenic genomes. Building computational models at this level of detail has proven difficult (and maybe not useful), and we lack intuition about how to interpret results of our experiments. Put another way: When should we be surprised by what we see in high throughput recordings? I will show that simple models can explain seemingly surprising results of high throughput experiments in fields as diverse as neuroscience and immunology (my primary focus here will be on neuroscience), and I will argue that success of these models signals emergence of simpler, collective descriptions of complex biological systems. The goal now is to identify those collective degrees of freedom, and how they interact with each other. Overall, this progress raises hopes for building predictive models of the nervous system without neurons, tissues without cells, and evolution without individuals or genes.

Time: Dec 3, 2021 12:30 PM Central Time (US and Canada)
Join Zoom Meeting: https://uchicago.zoom.us/j/93512790196?pwd=d1Z2MzFIYS92em8xNWM0L2F2ekE3dz09
Meeting ID: 935 1279 0196
Passcode: 895860

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Neurobiology Seminar…
Neurobiology Seminar: Lindsey Glickfeld

December 6, 2021 5:15 pm - 6:15 pm

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NeurIPS in person po…
NeurIPS in person poster session @ Harvard

December 6, 2021 8:00 pm - 11:00 pm

I am writing to invite you to an in-person and local NeurIPS event! As you know, NeurIPS is online this year. To make up for the missing in-person interactions, Harvard IACS kindly agreed to host a poster session for local researchers with papers accepted to NeurIPS 2021conference and workshops. Please join us to present your work and learn about what our colleagues have been up to.

The poster session will be on December 6th, 3pm-6pm in the new SEC building room LL2.223. There will be food and drinks served at LL2 atrium. We will provide poster boards (width 44 inches, height 50 inches).

Please feel free to forward this e-mail to other colleagues who might be interested in attending. If you will be presenting a poster, please register through this link by December 1st:
https://forms.gle/q9n8mLnKMHdRgGHD9

For visits to Harvard campus, please see the latest COVID guidance here: https://www.harvard.edu/coronavirus/campus-access/for-visitors/

Best wishes and happy thanksgiving,

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CBS Neurotechnology …
CBS Neurotechnology core open house

December 6, 2021 9:00 pm - 10:00 pm
NWL B401

The CBS Neurotechnology Core is hosting an open house from noon to 4pm on Dec 6th 2021 in NWL B401

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Katarina, Gabriel | …
Katarina, Gabriel | Meeting with Prof. Kreiman

December 7, 2021 5:00 pm - 6:00 pm
https://bit.ly/3w6NB1p

Zoom link:

https://bit.ly/3w6NB1p

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CBMM Meeting: Michal…
CBMM Meeting: Michale Fee

December 7, 2021 9:00 pm - 10:00 pm

We hope you can join us next Tuesday for the Brains, Minds and Machines Seminar Series talk by Prof. Michale Fee, (MIT BCS):

CBMM Brains, Minds, and Machines Seminar Series

Speaker/s: Prof. Michale Fee, Department Head & Dorflinger Professor, Dept. Brain and Cognitive Sciences; Investigator, McGovern Institute for Brain Research; MIT

Date: Tuesday, December 7, 2021

Time: 4:00 pm to 5:30 pm ET

Location: Singleton Auditorium (46-3002), MIT Building 46 | Brain and Cognitive Sciences Complex, 43 Vassar Street, Cambridge MA 02139

Abstract: TBA

Event website: https://cbmm.mit.edu/news-events/events/cbmm-brains-minds-and-machines-seminar-series-prof-michale-fee-mit-bcs

Speaker bio.: Michale Fee joined the McGovern Institute in 2003 and is currently the Glen V. and Phyllis F. Dorflinger Professor of Neuroscience in the Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences. He received his PhD in Applied Physics from Stanford University in 1992. Before moving to MIT, he was a principal investigator in the Biological Computation Research Department at Bell Laboratories in New Jersey.

Michale Fee studies how the brain learns and generates complex sequential behaviors, focusing on the songbird as a model system. Birdsong is a complex behavior that young birds learn from their fathers and it provides an ideal system to study the neural basis of learned behavior. Because the parts of the bird’s brain that control song learning are closely related to human circuits that are disrupted in brain disorders such as Parkinson’s and Huntington’s disease, Fee hopes the lessons learned from birdsong will provide new clues to the causes and possible treatment of these conditions.

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The Fall 2021 Brains, Minds, and Machines (BMM) Seminar Series will be hosted in a hybrid format. Please see the information included below regarding attending the event either in-person or remotely via Zoom connection.

Link to attend talk remotely via Zoom:

Zoom link: https://mit.zoom.us/j/93976178761?pwd=TFVPV2ZTNGk0K1hxYVNUTWFJSngyUT09

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Kreiman Lab Meeting …
Kreiman Lab Meeting -- Kohitij Kar

December 8, 2021 5:00 pm - 7:00 pm

Dr Gabriel Kreiman is inviting you to a scheduled Zoom meeting.

Topic: KLAB lab meeting
Time: Oct 14, 2020 12:00 PM Eastern Time (US and Canada)
Every week on Wed, until Nov 4, 2020, 4 occurrence(s)
Oct 14, 2020 12:00 PM
Oct 21, 2020 12:00 PM
Oct 28, 2020 12:00 PM
Nov 4, 2020 12:00 PM

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Katarina, Gabriel | …
Katarina, Gabriel | Meeting with Prof. Kreiman

December 14, 2021 5:00 pm - 6:00 pm
https://bit.ly/3w6NB1p

Zoom link:

https://bit.ly/3w6NB1p

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Kreiman Lab Meeting
Kreiman Lab Meeting

December 15, 2021 5:00 pm - 7:00 pm

Dr Gabriel Kreiman is inviting you to a scheduled Zoom meeting.

Topic: KLAB lab meeting
Time: Oct 14, 2020 12:00 PM Eastern Time (US and Canada)
Every week on Wed, until Nov 4, 2020, 4 occurrence(s)
Oct 14, 2020 12:00 PM
Oct 21, 2020 12:00 PM
Oct 28, 2020 12:00 PM
Nov 4, 2020 12:00 PM

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Katarina, Gabriel | …
Katarina, Gabriel | Meeting with Prof. Kreiman

December 21, 2021 5:00 pm - 6:00 pm
https://bit.ly/3w6NB1p

Zoom link:

https://bit.ly/3w6NB1p

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Kreiman Lab Meeting
Kreiman Lab Meeting

December 22, 2021 5:00 pm - 7:00 pm

Dr Gabriel Kreiman is inviting you to a scheduled Zoom meeting.

Topic: KLAB lab meeting
Time: Oct 14, 2020 12:00 PM Eastern Time (US and Canada)
Every week on Wed, until Nov 4, 2020, 4 occurrence(s)
Oct 14, 2020 12:00 PM
Oct 21, 2020 12:00 PM
Oct 28, 2020 12:00 PM
Nov 4, 2020 12:00 PM

See more details

Katarina, Gabriel | …
Katarina, Gabriel | Meeting with Prof. Kreiman

December 28, 2021 5:00 pm - 6:00 pm
https://bit.ly/3w6NB1p

Zoom link:

https://bit.ly/3w6NB1p

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Kreiman Lab Meeting
Kreiman Lab Meeting

December 29, 2021 5:00 pm - 7:00 pm

Dr Gabriel Kreiman is inviting you to a scheduled Zoom meeting.

Topic: KLAB lab meeting
Time: Oct 14, 2020 12:00 PM Eastern Time (US and Canada)
Every week on Wed, until Nov 4, 2020, 4 occurrence(s)
Oct 14, 2020 12:00 PM
Oct 21, 2020 12:00 PM
Oct 28, 2020 12:00 PM
Nov 4, 2020 12:00 PM

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December 2021

Why (and how) is there sexual dimorphism?

Abstract