(aka BCS Journal Club)
Fall Semester 2017-2018
The Cognition and Neural Systems (CNS) Journal Club meets on Tuesdays from 11:45 to 1:00 pm in Uris Hall 205.
Papers and notes from previous semesters can be found in the CNS (BCS) meeting archive.
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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 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 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 (1 CR, S/U) as a Topics in Biopsychology seminar: PSYCH 6271. 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 you enrolling if you plan to attend the whole semester and to present.
Please contact Thomas Cleland or David Smith with any questions.
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22 August 2017: Organizational Meeting
29 August 2017: David Smith
Adam M. P. Miller, William Mau and David M. Smith. Ensemble coding of long-term spatial memories and future goal locations in the retrosplenial cortex.
- Note: This manuscript is a working draft, so please do not distribute it beyond the journal club. Also, don't get too hung up with the analysis methodology. I'll explain as needed.
5 September 2017: Caitlyn Finton
Ludwig M, Tobin VA, Callahan MF, Papadaki E, Becker A, Engelmann M, Leng G (2013). Intranasal application of vasopressin fails to elicit changes in brain immediate-early gene expression, neural activity, and behavioural performance of rats. Journal of Neuroendocrinology 25:655-667.
- I have been thinking a lot about intranasal oxytocin and vasopressin. This paper suggests that there is no change in brain activity or behavior from intranasal OT and VP, although other papers have found behavioral changes.
- The following papers also were brought up during our (robust and interesting) discussion:
12 September 2017: Aubrey Kelly
- J. Goodson (2013). Deconstructing sociality, social evolution and relevant nonapeptide functions. Psychneuroendocrinology 38:465-478.
- This review, written by offspring of the Cornell Psych Department, stresses two important concepts relevant to all areas represented by attendees of the CNS journal club: 1) Careful consideration needs to be taken with how we define behavior, and 2) We must utilize a comparative approach in order to understand the evolution of behavior.
19 September 2017: Khena Swallow
S. Warren, E. Yacoub & G. Ghose (2014). Featural and temporal attention selectively enhance task-appropriate representations in human primary visual cortex. Nature Communications 5:5643.
This paper highlights two basic points that are important for anyone who cares about how brains work. First, attention alters the behavior of neuronal populations. As a result, tasks can impact what is represented and measured. Second, what is represented by neuronal populations is influenced by expectations along multiple dimensions, including visual features, timing, and semantics (not just space).
- Optional additional reading: T. Çukur, S. Nishimoto, A. Huth & J. Gallant (2013). Attention during natural vision warps semantic representation across the human brain. Nature Neuroscience 16(6):763-770.
26 September 2017: Angela Freeman
M. Sadananda, M.¨ohr, R. Schwarting (2008).Playback of 22-kHz and 50-kHz ultrasonic vocalizations induces differential c-fos expression in rat brain. Neuroscience Letters. 435:17-23.
- I picked my paper because it is one of very few that looks at the neural basis of rodent vocalizations. And I'm all about communication, and I did a similar study on ground squirrel communication, which I am presenting at SFN this year, so I wanted to discuss this paper to prep for what things might be good to address in my own work.
3 October 2017: Jesse Werth
B. Lasztoczi and T. Klausberger (2016). Hippocampal Place Cells Couple to Three Different Gamma Oscillations during Place Field Traversal. Neuron 91:34-40.
- Article discusses ideas central to neuronal information processing in a relatively well known brain network. We typically think of hippocampal place cells in the context of how much they fire (spike rates; e.g., with respect to place fields and the animal's physical location within an environment). The authors of this article offer an expanded framework that stresses the importance of when these cells fire (think small time-scales, spike-timing), rather than how much.
10 October 2017: Fall Break - No meeting
17 October 2017: Samantha Carouso
24 October 2017: George Prounis
31 October 2017: Adam Broitman
A. Broitman, M. Kahana and M. Healey (submitted). Modeling Retest Effects in a Longitudinal Measurement Burst Design Study of Episodic Memory.
7 November 2017: David Katz
14 November 2017: Society for Neuroscience - No meeting
21 November 2017: Norma Hernandez
28 November 2017: Wen-Yi Wu