Neuroscience Speaker Series

Spring 2024

Anubhuti Goel
Department of Psychology & Neuroscience
University of California, Riverside
Title: Dissecting GABAergic neuron dysfunction contributing to sensory and learning atypicalities in FXS
Tuesday, February 12th, 4:00 PM
Burns Lecture Hall (RM B31), Keck Science Center

Alicia Izquierdo
Department of Psychology
University of California, Los Angeles
Tentative Title: “Flexible reinforcement learning and decision-making”
Tuesday, February 20th, 4:00 PM
Seaver Commons RM 102
Pomona College

Lauren McElvain
Department of Biological Sciences
University of Southern California
Tentative Title: “Basal ganglia, brainstem circuits and movement”
Wednesday, April 3rd, 4:00 PM
Burns Lecture Hall (RM B31), Keck Science Center
Pomona College

Jacob Jones
Department of Psychology
California State University, San Bernardino
Wednesday, April 17th, 4:00 PM
Seaver Commons RM 102
Pomona College


Past Speakers

Fall 2023

Adriana Galvan
University of California, Los Angeles
“The Adolescent Brain: Insights from Neuroscience”

Katherine Meltzoff
University of California, Riverside
“Can EEG be used to advance “precision medicine” in autism? Evidence from Reward-related changes after the PEERS intervention”.

Idan Blank
University of California, Los Angeles
“How I started studying the neural basis of language and fluid intelligence”.

Eitan Schechtman
University of California, Irvine
“Sleep-related Memory Consolidation: Beyond Single, Isolated Memories”.

Spring 2023

Colin Eckstein
“Psychedelics & Neuroscience: Ketamine-assisted Psychotherapy”

Arbi Nazarian
Western University Health Sciences
“Pain-induced impulsivity and its reversal”

Kaylie Carbine
California State University, Dominguez Hills
“Food-Related Inhibition and the Brain: Patterns, Perceptions, and Possibilities”

Melissa Sharpe
University of California, Los Angeles
“The contribution of distinct dopamine circuits to different forms of learning”

Yvette Szabo
California State University Los Angeles
“Those who ruminate less are more likely to PROSPER after stress and trauma”

Fall 2022

Mara Mather
University of Southern California
“The locus coeruleus in aging: Promoting cognitive reserve or accelerating Alzheimer’s disease?”

James Finley
University of Southern California
“Identifying principles of motor skill learning to improve mobility”

Stephan Mahler
University of California, Irvine
“Developing addiction: How sex, developmental experiences, and drug Use impact vulnerability to substance use disorders”

Jonas Kaplan
University of Southern California
“Losing the plot: The cognitive neuroscience of engagement with and disengagement from narrative thought”

Daniel Kelly
Pacific Neuroscience Institute
“Psychedelics in the treatment of mental illness”

Spring 2022

Laura Harrison
Chief Science Officer, psyML
“Neuroscience: Bridging Research from Academia to Industry”

Lindsay De Biase
University of California, Los Angeles
“CNS Microglia: Immune Cells that Shape Neuron Health and Function”

Spencer LaVere Smith
University of California, Santa Barbara
“Watching the brain in action, and how to start your career in neuroscience”

Michael Long
New York University
“Neural mechanisms of interactive communication”

Lindsey Schier
University of Southern California
“Oral Digestive and Metabolic Contributions to Sugar Reward”

Andrew Steele
Calpoly Pomona
“Get rhythm: investigations of dopamine populations regulating food anticipatory activity and diet-induced obesity in mice”

Fall 2021

Garrett Anderson
University of California, Riverside
“Molecular Control of Circuit Assembly”

Michael Beyeler
University of California, Santa Barbara>
“Restoring Vision with a Bionic Eye”

Alison Barth
Carnegie Mellon University>
“Sensory Learning and Synaptic Plasticity in the Mammalian Neocortex”

Scott Kanoski
University of Southern California
“Western Diet Consumption and Memory Impairment: What, When and How?”

Emily Sylwestrik
University of Oregon
“Seeking Rewards: Neuronal Cell-Types Encoding Past Outcomes and Future Payoffs”

Spring 2021

Ulises Ricoy
University of Arizona
“Natural and drug reward in cockroaches: Conditioned place preference in invertebrates”

Lisa Gunaydin
University of California, San Francisco
“Fronto-striatal control of anxiety-like behaviors”

Adam Miller
University of Oregon
“Rethinking the electrical synapse – an intracellular scaffold required for the structure/function of the gap junction channels”

Ephron Rosenzweig
University of California, San Diego
“Neural stem cell grafts for repair of spinal cord injury”

Fall 2020

“Alzheimer’s Prevention: Understanding risk factors to inform intervention trials”

“Sleep traits that influence learning and memory consolidation and mental health”

Keck School of Medicine, USC
“Alzheimer’s Prevention: Understanding risk factors to inform intervention trials”

Leslie Amodeo
Cal State University San Bernardino
“Impact of adolescent alcohol use on decision-making, sleep, and cortical activity”

Ana Wexler
University of Pennsylvania
“The future of neurotechnology: Social and ethical issues”

David Barack
Columbia University
“Information Seeking and Learning in Complex Environments”

Aaron Bornstein
University of California, Irvine
“The persistence of memory: Episodic influences on decisions and addictions”

Adam Roberts
California State University, Fullerton
Topic TBA

Leslie Amodeo
Topic TBA

Fall 2019

Arnaud Delorme
Swartz Center for Computational Neuroscience, University of California, San Diego
“Computational Neuroscience and Consciousness”

Pat Levitt
Institute for the Developing Mind, Children’s Hospital Los Angeles
“Developmental Neuroscience”

Jeffrey Donlea
Department of Neurobiology, UCLA
“Molecular functions of sleep”

Baljit Khakh
Department of Physiology, UCLA

2018–2019

Summer Thyme
Harvard University
“Phenotypic Landscape of Schizophrenia-Associated Genes Defines Candidates and their Shared Functions”

Harold Zakon
University of Texas at Austin
“Scorpions vs. Desert Mice: A Case Study of Evolutionary Jiu Jitsu”

Ute Hochgeschwender
Central Michigan University
“Bioluminescent Optogenetics – Molecular Control with Biological Light “

Michele Basso
Semel Institute for Neuroscience & Human Behavior
“Cognition and Movement in Parkinson’s Disease”

Rachita Sumbria
Keck Graduate Institute
“High-affinity transferrin receptor antibodies to piggyback biologics into the brain for Alzheimer’s disease”

Wayne Wu
Carnegie Mellon University
“Neuroscience and the Challenge of Consciousness”

Richard Mooney
Duke University
“From Song to Synapse: The Neurobiology of Vocal Communication”

An Do
University of California, Irvine
“Encoding of associative memory in engram cell pathways”

Spring 2018

Michael Landy
New York University
“Sensory Cue Integration: Beyond Vision”

Audrey Chen
University of California, Irvine
“Neuroimmunological regulation of sleep”

Andrei Irima
University of Southern California
“Concussions and their lasting effects upon mental health, neural degeneration and human longevity”

Ilana Bennett
University of California, Riverside
“Diffusion imaging of the aging brain: How integrity relates to episodic memory dysfunction”

Teresa Wen
Neuroscience Program, University of California, Riverside
“Development of structural and functional abnormalities underlying auditory hypersensitivity in a mouse model of Fragile X Syndrome”

Fall 2017

Barbara Knowlton
Department of Psychology, University of California, Los Angeles
“Neural Correlates of “Desirable Difficulties” in Motor Skill Learning”

Giorgio Coricelli
Departments of Economics and Psychology, University of Southern California
“Brain, Emotion and Decision Making: The Paradigmatic Examples of Regret and Envy”

Nicholas DiPatrizio
Division of Biomedical Sciences, School of Medicine, University of California, Riverside
“Endocannabinoids and the Gut-Brain Control of Hedonic Eating”

Fall 2016

Arne Dietrich
Department of Psychology, American University of Beirut
“The Flow Experience: From Mystetry to Mechanism”

Katie Page
Department of Internal Medicine, USC Keck School of Medicine
“A View from the Top: Brain Regulatuion of Appetite and Feeding Behavior”

Weisong Ong
Department of Neuroscience, University of Pennsylvania”
“Evaluating the Neurobiology of Strategic Cooperation in Non-Human Primates”

Spring 2016

Michael Landy
Department of Psychology and Neural Science, NYU
“The Hebbian normalization model or cortical adaptation”

Paul Merritt
Department of Psychology, Georgetown University

Jessie Peissig
Department of Psychology, Calstate Fullerton
“Biological basis of makeup and attractiveness”

Patricia Phelps
Department of Integrative Biology & Physiology, UCLA
“Ellects of olfactory enshaething cell after spinal cord injury”

Edythe London
Department of Molelcular nand Medical Pharmacology, UCLA
“Dopamine and brain function in addiction”

Fall 2015

Lori James
University of Colorado, Colorado Springs

Laura Loesch Harriso
University of Southern California

Christie Fowler
Dept Neurobiology & Behavior, UC Riverside
“Neural Circuits and Signaling Mechanisms Mediating Nicotine Dependence”

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