Brain and Behaviour Seminar
2024

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September 30th

4:00 PM, Hybrid, In-person: Psychology Lounge, St. George

Dr. Tatsuya Tsukahara

Lunenfeld-Tanenbaum Research Institute, Sinai Health System

Department of Molecular Genetics, University of Toronto

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“Linking Activity History with Future Sensory Responses via Gene Expression”

As we traverse across environments, our brains are constantly exposed to a variety of sensory signals that activate neurons. To keep individual neurons within a healthy dynamic range and protect the brain from the flood of information, our nervous system needs to adapt to the environment by ignoring the background signals that are persistent or repetitive and emphasizing novel or salient cues. We recently revealed that neurons in the mouse nose adaptively modulate sensory responses by reconfiguring their transcriptomes based on activity history over the timescales of hours to days. This discovery transformed our understanding of adaptation as prior studies have mainly focused on shorter timescales and changes in the strength of synaptic connections in the brain. It also poses a key question about how the brain contends with the previously underappreciated flexibility in peripheral sensory codes. I will also discuss our lab’s ongoing efforts to elucidate molecular mechanisms of long-term transcriptional adaptation.

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November 4th

4:00 PM, Hybrid, In-person: Psychology Lounge, St. George

Dr. Caleb Browne

The Centre for Addiction and Mental Health

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"Neural mechanisms underlying the development of substance use disorder and relapse vulnerability"

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The link to virtual seminars will be sent one week before the seminar date. Please sign up below to receive the seminar link.

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