ION Seminar Series

For the 2020-2021 academic year, ION seminars are held remotely at either 12 PM or 4 PM PT on Thursdays unless otherwise specified. Seminars are hosted on Zoom and are open to the UO community and occasionally on World Wide Neuro. Links to the weekly seminar will be advertised through the ION mailing list and those not on the list can request access by contacting Jenna Penny at seminars @ uoneuro.uoregon.edu. For more information and support for using the Zoom platform visit UOregon Zoom.

Upcoming Institute of Neuroscience Seminar

Xiaoxuan Jia, PhD

Senior Scientist
Allen Institute

"Tracking information flow in mouse visual areas"

Host: Luca Mazzucato

Thursday, April 15th, 2021 at 12 PM PDT

Zoom access provided via ION mailing list

The anatomy of the mouse visual system indicates it is organized hierarchically, yet direct functional evidence is still lacking. Here, we simultaneously recorded spiking activity from tens of thousands of neurons from six cortical and two thalamic regions along the anatomically defined visual hierarchy in awake mice. Using cross-correlation analysis, we reveal that the organization of inter-area functional connectivity during visual stimulation mirrors the anatomical hierarchy. We find that four classical hierarchical measures —response latency, receptive field size, receptive field complexity, and response decay timescale—are all correlated with the hierarchy. Moreover, recordings during a visual change-detection task reveal that the correlation between neural activity and behavioral choice increases along the hierarchy. These results suggest a functional hierarchy that follows anatomy during sensory drive, which forms the first principle of functional organization in mouse visual system. However, since there are extensive recurrent connections between areas, the signal flow is not a simple one-way pass along the hierarchy. We generated multi-area, directed graphs with single-neuron resolution by analyzing millisecond-timescale leading and lagging spike-timing relationships between pairs of neurons. Network analysis revealed two spatially-distributed functional modules. These modules differ in their layer and area distributions, network properties, individual and population-level temporal dynamics, suggesting they mediate different stages of sensory processing. One module is positioned to transmit feedforward sensory signals along the hierarchy, while the other receives convergent input and engages in recurrent processing. These results reveal a cellular-resolution cortical network topology with distinct sensory processing modules mediating feedforward and recurrent processes, which forms the second principle of functional organization in mouse visual areas.

Learn More

Spring 2021

DATE	SPEAKER	TITLE	HOST
4/1/2021 12 PM PT	Bernado Sabatini	Circuits of action selection and reinforcement	Denver Ncube
4/8/2021 4 PM PT	Nicoladie Tam	How to speed up the brain, how emotions bias decisions, is ignorance bliss, is love priceless, gender-difference in emotional sensitivity, and decode movement directions by applying computational theories and analyses of cortical optical imaging hemodynamic signals	Kelsey Schultz
4/15/2021 12 PM PT	Xiaoxuan Jia	Tracking information flow in mouse visual areas	Luca Mazzucato
4/22/2021 12 PM PT	Fanny Cazettes	Multiplexed accumulation of evidence in the mouse frontal cortex	Luca Mazzucato
4/29/2021	Michael Granato	TBA	Sarah Ackerman & Judith Eisen
5/6/2021 12 PM PT	Marla Feller	Wiring up direction selective circuits in the retina	Adam Miller
5/13/2021 12 PM PT	Gerry Downes	From swimming to seizures: Investigating locomotor behavior and epilepsy in developing zebrafish	Anne Martin
5/20/2021	Kang Shen	TBA	Sarah Ackerman
5/27/2021	Patrick Kanold	TBA	Santiago Jaramillo
6/3/2021	SueYeon Chung	TBA	Luca Mazzucato
6/10/2021	Marta Zlatic	CSN Fest - Finals Week	Emily Heckman

Fall 2020

DATE	SPEAKER	TITLE	HOST
10/22/2020 Noon PT	Eve Marder	Mind-Brain Institute of Neurosicence Lecture: "Differential Resilience to Pertubations of Circuits with Similar Performance"	David McCormick
10/29/2020 12 PM PT	Cody Smith	Glial and Neuronal Interactions that Build the Nervous System	Judith Eisen
11/5/2020 12 PM PT	Georg Keller	Cortical circuits for predictive processing	David McCormick
11/12/2020 12 PM PT	Phyllis Robinson	Best Practices in Cultivating Success for Underrepresented Populations Pursuing Degrees in Stem in Higher Education	Judith Eisen DEI
11/19/2020 12 PM PT	David McLean	Decoding neural circuits for movement control by studying zebrafish	James Murray
11/26/2020		No Seminar - Thanksgiving Holiday
12/3/2020 12 PM PT	Vanessa Ruta	Theme and Variations: Circuit Mechanisms of Behavioral Evolution	Emily Heckman Womxn in Neuroscience
12/10/2020		No Seminar - Finals Week

Winter 2021

DATE	SPEAKER	TITLE	HOST
1/14/2021 4 PM PT	Matthieu Louis	Neural computations directing orientation behavior during larval chemotaxis	Matt Smear
1/21/2021 Postponed	Sonja Hofer	Postponed	David McCormick
1/28/2021 12 PM PT	Amy Orsborn	Measuring, modeling and shaping neural plasticity in brain-machine interfaces	James Murray
2/4/2021		No Seminar - Graduate Recruitment
2/11/2021 12 PM PT	Sheena Josselyn	Making memories in mice	Dasa Zeithamova
2/18/2021 Postponed	Caleb Kemere	Postponed: Latent Spaces of Memory in Real and Virtual Worlds	Cris Niell
2/25/2021 12 PM PT	Maria Geffen	The role of cortical adaptation and plasticity in auditory learning and behavior	Isabella Salinas Womxn in Neuroscience
Wednesday 3/3/2021 10 AM PT	Kaela Singleton	Control of Neuron Formation in Neurodevelopmental & Neurodegernative Disorders Womxn in Neuroscience hosted seminar	Rachel Lukowicz
3/4/2021 4 PM PT	Melissa Warden	Neuromodulation and the balance between goal-directed and reactive behavior	Emily Sylwestrak
3/11/2021 12 PM PT	Richard Mooney	From Song to Synapse	Santiago Jaramillo
3/18/2021		No Seminar - Finals Week