This seminar will begin at 4:00 pm at the Jerome L. Greene Science Center on Columbia University’s Manhattanville campus (L7-119). Light refreshments will be available starting at 3:30 pm.

This month's speakers:

Nabil Daddaoua (Gottlieb lab): "Integration of Prior Probability and Uncertainty During Information Seeking in the Monkey Lateral Intraparietal Area."

Studies of attention have focused primarily on the volitional aspect of attentional allocation. In such studies, monkeys perform tasks wherein attentional allocation policies are trained and reinforced by reward. During natural behavior, however, animals use active sensing strategies wherein they endogenously decide which cues to sample for information, which in turn guides future actions. In this talk, I will describe the specific role of the lateral intraparietal area in biasing attention toward informative cues while monkeys engage in a self-initiated information-seeking behavior.

Anita Devineni (Axel lab): "Temporal Dynamics in Taste Coding"

Temporal dynamics in the taste system have rarely been investigated. I have identified previously unknown response dynamics in Drosophila taste sensory neurons, and these dynamics vary depending on the neuron's location and preferred modality. For example, some classes of cells show a sustained response throughout the stimulus presentation, whereas others show a transient stimulus response followed by a robust offset response upon stimulus removal. These dynamics are conserved in downstream taste-responsive neurons and strongly influence synaptic plasticity during associative learning.

This seminar is part of the Zuckerman Institute Postdoctoral Seminar series. For questions about this or future seminars, please contact series organizers Chris Rodgers, PhD, or Amy Norovich, PhD.