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Fall Semester 2008-2009

10 September 2008:  Organizational Meeting
17 September 2008:  D. Smith
25 September 2008:  D. Smith
2 October 2008:  Mark Albert
9 October 2008: Christina Sill
16 October 2008: David Field
23 October 2008: Patrick Gill
30 October 2008: Thom Cleland

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.  

6 November 2008: Mike Wojnowicz
13 November 2008: Helene Porte
20 November 2008:
27 November 2008: Thanksgiving Break - NO MEETING
4 December 2008:

Spring Semester 2008-2009

21 January 2009:  Organizational Meeting
28 January 2009: David Smith
4 February 2009: Greg Peters
11 February 2009: Anuttama Sheela Mohan
18 February 2009: Mike Wojnowitcz - POSTPONED DUE TO PSYCHOLOGY FACULTY MEETING.
25 February 2009:   SUPERSEDED BY PSYCHOLOGY FACULTY MEETING
4 March 2009: Thom Cleland
11 March 2009: David Smith
18 March 2009: TBA
25 March 2009: Christine Charvet (visiting postdoc)
1 April 2009: TBA, There will be a room change for this meeting.
8 April 2009: Christina Sill
15 April 2009: Cancelled!
22 April 2009: Helene Porte
29 April 2009: Mike Wojnowicz

Fall Semester 2009-2010

1 September 2009:  Organizational Meeting
8 September 2009: Mark Albert
15 September 2009: Sasha DeVore
22 September 2009: David Smith
29 September 2009: Article Pot Luck
6 October 2009:  Mike Wojnowicz
13 October 2009: Fall Break - No meeting.
20 October 2009: Society for Neuroscience Conference - No meeting.
27 October 2009: Ted Cornforth
3 November 2009: Anuttama Sheela Mohan
10 November 2009: Matt Law

During the discussion, Patrick Gill brought up an additional related paper:

Today several people asked me to send out a 2005 paper (Fusi, Drew, Abbott 2005, Cascade models of synaptically stored memories_)_ showing why a variety of memory maintenance mechanisms with different timescales are better than having just one or two simple memory maintenance mechanisms.  Here it is._  There's also a followup paper showing why it didn't matter that they used synapses with binary weighting in the 2005 paper:_  Stefano Fusi & L F Abbott  "Limits on the memory storage capacity of bounded synapses"  Nat Neuro 10 (4) April 2007 p 485.

17 November 2009: SiWei Luo
24 November 2009: Laura Manella
1 December 2009: Greg Peters

Spring Semester 2009-2010

For Spring semester 2009-2010, the Behavioral, Computational, and Systems Neuroscience (BCS) Journal Club will meet on Tuesdays from 12:00 to 1:15 pm in Uris Hall 205

The overarching theme this semester is Oscillations.  Adhering to this theme is not required, but recommended.  Please interpret it broadly. Theories of gamma, beta, and theta oscillations in the nervous system are the centroid of intent, but alpha, sleep, circadian, etc. rhythms are also spot-on as are reasonably accessible dynamical systems topics from math and engineering. 

To add yourself to the BCS-L mailing list, send a plain-text email to bcs-L-request@cornell.edu with the body of the message saying simply join.  The subject line doesn't matter.  Sending the message leave instead will unsubscribe you from the list.  See Cornell's Lyris HowTo page for further details. 

Please contact Thomas Cleland with any questions (David Smith is on walkabout this semester).  BCS meeting archive.

26 January 2010:  Organizational Meeting
2 February 2010:  Thomas Cleland

In discussion, Patrick brought up Li et al (2004), a paper from Mu-ming Poo's lab showing that those presynaptic neurons that spike early, and that consequently (via STDP) have their synaptic weights upon a postsynaptic neuron strengthened, are also themselves rendered more excitable. That is, by this mechanism STDP can "work on the presynaptic neuron" as well as on its output synapse. The net effect of this can be to durably group a set of early-firing neurons together into a fully synchronous ensemble evoking activity in that postsynaptic cell.

9 February 2010:  Christina Sill
16 February 2010:  Patrick Gill
23 February 2010:  NO MEETING
2 March 2010:  Helene Porte
9 March 2010:  Sasha Devore

In discussion, Guoshi brought up this modeling paper analyzing the property that visual input (lip reading) facilitates auditory input most effectively under moderate noise conditions. 

16 March 2010:  Thomas Cleland
23 March 2010:  SPRING BREAK
30 March 2010:  SiWei Luo
6 April 2010:  Guoshi Li
13 April 2010:  Anuttama Sheela Mohan
20 April 2010:  Shane Peace and Ben Johnson
27 April 2010:  NO MEETING
4 May 2010:  Mike Wojnowicz

NOTE: It's coming time to start thinking of next semester's overarching theme. One possibility is "Synaptic plasticity", a broad topic that could include molecular mechanisms as well as population-level patterns of perceptual learning, LTP as well as neuromodulator-regulated changes.  As a BCS topic, of course, the intent would be to choose approaches relevant to behavioral, computational, and systems-level questions.  The relevance/necessity of bidirectional regulation of plasticity would be a prime topic.  Following up on synchrony-dependent timing properties of synaptic plasticity mechanisms would establish a common thread with this semester's theme.  Another, somewhat related theme is a neuroscience version of statistical learning:  anything from perceptual learning to Bayesian representations of coding to temporal difference learning to dopamine (Schultz model) to the underlying synaptic rules that give rise to relevant population level learning properties to optimality of the Bayesian brain.  Thoughts?  other ideas?  Send them to Thom or bring them up at BCS. 

Another idea:  Mechanisms of memory consolidation and reconsolidation -- perhaps a more focused version of "synaptic plasticity" as above.  These topics are much more well understood and diverse than they were even a few years ago, and they are leading to a number of exciting hypotheses about systems and behavioral integrative mechanisms.  For example, see Nader & Einarsson (2010) Ann NY Acad Sci 1191:27-41, as well as Jonathan L.C. Lee's recent Nature Neuroscience paper (2008) and Trends in Neurosciences opinion (2010).  

Fall Semester 2010-2011

For Fall Semester 2010-2011, the Behavioral, Computational, and Systems Neuroscience (BCS) Journal Club will meet on Tuesdays from 11:45 to 1:00 pm in Uris Hall 205.

The overarching theme this semester is Systems of neuronal representation and learning.  Adhering to this theme is not required, but is strongly recommended.  Please interpret it broadly. It is intended to include such diverse topics as:  the systematic regulation of synaptic plasticity, Bayesian representations (including sensory representations as probability estimates), Bayesian and/or energetic optimality in neural encoding or transmission, perceptual learning, decision-making (including reward harvesting), temporal difference learning/dopamine (Schultz model), synaptic rules that give rise to systems-level learning properties.

 

31 August 2010:  Organizational Meeting
7 September 2010: Thom Cleland
14 September 2010: David Smith
21 September 2010:  Laura Darnieder
28 September 2010:  Michelle Tong
5 October 2010:  Matt Lewis
12 October 2010: Anuttama Sheela Mohan
19 October 2010:  Guoshi Li
26 October 2010:  Sasha Devore
2 November 2010:  Tanya Nauvel
9 November 2010:  Adam Miller
16 November 2010:  NO MEETING (Society for Neuroscience Annual Meeting)
23 November 2010:  Shane Peace
30 November 2010: SiWei Luo
THEME PROPOSALS FOR SPRING 2011:

Spring Semester 2010-2011

For Spring Semester 2010-2011, the Behavioral, Computational, and Systems Neuroscience (BCS) Journal Club will meet on Tuesdays from 11:45 to 1:00 pm in Uris Hall 205

Papers and notes from previous semesters can be found in the BCS meeting archive.

The overarching theme this semester is Cell assemblies, functional connectivity, and feedback.  Please interpret it broadly. It is intended to include such diverse topics as: cortical microcircuits, the dynamic reconfiguration of neural circuitry, decision making by such circuitry, the interactions between complex circuits and neuromodulatory nuclei (e.g., the basis for specificity in neuromodulatory effects), and the relationship between specific neuromodulators and nominal functions such as "attention" or "arousal".  

To add yourself to the BCS-L mailing list, send a plain-text email to bcs-L-request@cornell.edu with the body of the message saying simply join.  The subject line doesn't matter.  Sending the message leave instead will unsubscribe you from the list.  See Cornell's Lyris HowTo page for further details. 

You can enroll in the BCS Journal Club for graduate or undergraduate credit  (2 CR, S/U) as a Topics in Biopsychology seminar:  PSYCH 6271-102.  The course requires that you present at least once during the semester and participate actively overall.

Please contact Thomas Cleland or David Smith with any questions.

25 January 2011:  Organizational Meeting
1 February 2011:  Patrick Gill
8 February 2011:  Dave Bulkin
15 February 2011:  TBD
22 February 2011:  TBD
1 March 2011:  Guoshi Li

      This is a tough one folks, so be extra sure to read it ahead of time. 

 Followup papers and URL of potential interest:

8 March 2011:  Licurgo de Almeida
15 March 2011:  Matt Lewis
22 March 2011:   SPRING BREAK -- NO MEETING
29 March 2011:  Laura Darnieder
5 April 2011:  Michelle Tong
12 April 2011:  Tanya Nauvel
19 April 2011:  Anuttama Sheela Mohan
26 April 2011:  Adam Miller

      An interesting exploration of the functional connectivity between two memory systems.

3 May 2011:  CANCELLED