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:

NaYoung So, PhD (Shadlen Lab): "Decision, interrupted"
Cognitive operations such as decision-making can persist not only over time, but also across intervening activities. Although the neurons in the lateral intraparietal area (LIP) are known to represent neural computations on flexible timescales, LIP neurons are also known to represent information in an oculocentric coordinate frame, which raises the question of whether they can carry out computations that span multiple oculomotor actions. I found that the population of neurons in LIP can represent a decision in a head- or allo-centric coordinate frame by passing information to appropriate members of the population during intervening eye movements. Such message passing could achieve invariance (e.g., to direction of gaze), obviating the need for explicit representation.

Paolo Botta, PhD (Costa Lab): "An amygdala circuit for experience-dependent exploratory arrest"
Exploration of new environments ensures survival and evolutionary fitness. This behavior is expressed through exploratory trips, the progression of which is dependent upon past experiences. However, how the brain continuously updates newly acquired contextual information in order to shape exploratory movement dynamics remains elusive. Using closed-loop optogenetic manipulations and calcium imaging of neuronal activity in freely-moving mice, I will present the experience-dependent formation of amygdala neuronal ensembles engaged in voluntary arrests during exploration.

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