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Spring Semester 2025-2026
The Cognition and Neural Systems (CNS) Journal Club (nee' BCS Journal Club), also known as PSYCH 6271-101, meets on Tuesdays from 11:40 to 1:15 pm in 205 Uris Hall (across from the elevators).
Your hosts are David Smith and Thomas Cleland.
Papers and notes from previous semesters can be found in the CNS (BCS) meeting archive.
Shortlink to this page: https://cornellneuro.science/cnsjournalclub
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Presentations in the CNS JC are intended to "show us what you are interested in"; i.e., present work within your subfield that illustrates why it is interesting and broadly applicable. It is less important to choose papers that you think will be close to every attendees' heart than it is to choose papers that are blisteringly important or interesting or controversial in your own subfield, and explain/share this with the group. It's good for all of us. The corollary is that journal club members attend regularly, and don't decide whether to attend in a given week based on what is being presented.
Presenting your own work is always welcome, in whatever manner you like.
To add yourself to the journal club mailing list (BCS-L@lists.cornell.edu), or remove yourself from it, follow the instructions at https://it.cornell.edu/simplelists/manage-subscriptions.
You can enroll in the CNS Journal Club for credit (1 CR, S/U) as a Topics in Biopsychology seminar: PSYCH 6271-101. The course requires that you present at least once during the semester and participate actively overall. You are welcome to attend without enrolling, of course, but we do appreciate graduate students enrolling if you plan to attend.
Please contact Thomas Cleland or David Smith with any questions.
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20 January 2026: Organizational Meeting
27 January 2026: NO MEETING
3 February 2026: David Smith
- M. Zipple, B. Loflin, D. Chang Kuo, E. Tan and M. Sheehan (2025). Transfer to a naturalistic setting restructures fear responses in laboratory mice. Curr Bio 35:1157-76.
10 February 2026: NO MEETING
- Instead, please attend Micaela Rodriguez' "Human Bonding" lecture, 11:00 - 12:30, in G90 Uris Hall. (Dr. Rodriguez is a candidate for a faculty position in Psychology).
17 February 2026: FEBRUARY BREAK - NO MEETING
24 February 2026: Lindsay Sailer
- Nardou R, Sawyer E, et al (2023). Psychedelics reopen the social reward learning critical period. Nature 618: 790–798.
- Lindsay has generously shared her slide deck, with background info and related context.
3 March 2026: James Cunningham
- Asumbisa K, Peyrache A, Trenholm S (2025). Stereo olfaction underlies stable coding of head direction in blind mice. Nature Communications 16:3545.
10 March 2026: Patryk Ziobro
- Original research presentation (!)
17 March 2026: David Zheng
- Jung J, You I-J, Shin S (2025). Thalamo-hippocampal pathway determines aggression and self-harm. Science Advances 11: eady5540.
24 March 2026: Cynthia Wu
- Wolf D, Oettle L-L, Sanchez-Guardado L, Linster C, Lois C, Kelsch W (2026). Deletion of NPAS4 in olfactory bulb principal neurons alters E/I balance and impairs decoding of chemically similar odor molecules. Journal of Physiology 604.1: 527-547.
- Cynthia will also show some of her own work, some of which relates to the immediate-early gene Npas4. Some related papers:
- A preprint presenting "X-TRAP" transgenic mice ... essentially a double FosTRAP strain using two different inducers of Fos-gated fluorophore expression.
- The original paper introducing the Xon method, used as the second "TRAP"-like method in the "X-TRAP" paper.
31 March 2026: SPRING BREAK - NO MEETING
7 April 2026: TBD
14 April 2026: Wangchen Pei
- Perez EC, Elie JE, Soulage CO, Soula HA, Mathevon N, Vignal C (2012). The acoustic expression of stress in a songbird: Does corticosterone drive isolation-induced modifications of zebra finch calls? Hormones and Behavior 61: 573-581.
- For additional background reading of potential interest, there is this review:
- MacDougall-Shackleton SA, Spencer KA (2012). Developmental stress and birdsong: current evidence and future directions. Journal of Ornithology 153 (Suppl): S105-S117.
21 April 2026: No meeting
28 April 2026: No meeting
5 May 2026: Shiping Li
- J. Zhao, B. An, N. Cheng, Q. Dong, C. Wang, X. Chen (2025). Gravity-dependent choice of frame of reference in the posterior parietal cortex. Current Biology 35, 4882–4897.
See you in the fall!
The Behavioral, Computational, and Systems Neuroscience (BCS) Journal Club meets on Thursdays from 1:40 to 2:40 pm in Uris Hall 205.
Please contact David Smith or Thomas Cleland with any questions.
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10 September 2008: Organizational Meeting
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17 September 2008: D. Smith
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25 September 2008: D. Smith
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- Lapish, Durstewitz, Chandler and Seamans (2008). Successful choice behavior is associated with distinct and coherent network states in anterior cingulate cortex. PNAS, 105(33), 11963-8.
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2 October 2008: Mark Albert
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- Albert, M. V., Schnabel, A. and Field, D. J. (2008). Innate Visual Learning Through Spontaneous Activity Patterns. PLOS Computational Biology, 4(8), 1-8.
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9 October 2008: Christina Sill
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- Ji and Wilson (2008). Coordinated memory replay in the visual cortex and hippocampus during sleep. Nature Neuroscience, 10(3), 100-7.
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16 October 2008: David Field
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- Gross, C. G. (2002). Genealogy of the Grandmother Cell. Neuroscientist, 8(1), 84-90.
- Quiroga, Reddy, Kreiman, Koch Invariant visual representation by single neurons in the human brain. Nature, 435, 1102-7.
- Waydo, Kraskov, Quiroga, Fried, and Koch. (2006). Sparse Representation in the Human Medial Temporal Lobe. Journal of Neuroscience, 26(40), 10232-4.
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23 October 2008: Patrick Gill
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- Gill, Amin, Fremouw, Woolley and Theunissen. Functional Consequences of Synaptic Plasticity in Sensory Systems (draft manuscript).
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30 October 2008: Thom Cleland
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- Cleland and Sethupathy (2006). Non-topographical contrast enhancement in the olfactory bulb. BMC Neurosci 7:7.
- Cleland, Johnson, Leon, Linster (2007). Relational representation in the olfactory system. PNAS 104(6):1953-8.
These two modeling papers illustrate a theoretical model of the mechanisms underlying high-dimensional decorrelation of odor stimuli in the olfactory bulb. The first (2006) is the more important for journal club purposes.
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6 November 2008: Mike Wojnowicz
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- Durstewitz, Kelc and Gunturkun (1999). A Neurocomputational Theory of the Dopaminergic Modulation of Working Memory Functions. J. Neuroscience. 19(7):2807-22.
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13 November 2008: Helene Porte
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- Louie and Wilson (2006). Temporally Structured Replay of Awake Hippocampal Ensemble Activity during Rapid Eye Movement Sleep. Neuron. 29:145-156.
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20 November 2008:
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- Summerfield, Hassabis and Maguire (2008). Cortical midline involvement in autobiographical memory. Neuroimage. early e-pbulication.
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27 November 2008: Thanksgiving Break - NO MEETING
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4 December 2008:
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