Friday, September 09, 2011 12:00pm

Dr. Brandon and Jake Hinman to give Brown Bag Talks

Jake Hinman from the University of Connecticut and Dr. Mark Brandon from Boston University will be giving Behavioral Neuroscience Brown Bag Talks on September 9th from 12-1pm in Wolf 108.

Jake Hinman's talked is titled "Variation in theta rhythm dynamics across the septotemporal axis of the hippocampus". Below is a summary of his talk:

The septotemporal (dorsal-ventral) axis of the hippocampus in the rat spans up to 12 mm and there are clear functional differences across this axis that are likely due to important differences in afferents to and efferents from the septal and temporal ends of the hippocampus. Theta oscillations generated at different sites across the septotemporal axis show marked differences in their relationship to the ongoing behavior of the rat. Data will be presented demonstrating variation in the relationship of theta oscillations to spatial and non-spatial variables at sites across the septotemporal axis in the behaving rat.

Dr. Mark Brandon will also be giving a talk and his talk is titled "Towards understanding the relationship between theta oscillations and spatial coding in the entorhinal-hippocampal circuit". Here is a summary:

Several computational models have predicted that theta oscillations are essential for the remarkable spatial coding of medial entorhinal grid cells. Consistent with this prediction, I will present data from grid cell recordings during medial septum inactivation that shows a simultaneous reduction of theta oscillations and the spatial periodicity grid cells. Furthermore, grid cell models require precisely timed head direction cell input. I will present new evidence of a hard-wired network based theta phase code of head direction cell spiking in the medial entorhinal cortex that could be critical for grid cell spatial computation.

Tuesday, September 13, 2011 3:30pm

Professor Marysia Lewicka from the University of Warsaw to give Brown Bag Talk

Professor Marysia Lewicka from the Department of Psychology at the University of Warsaw will give a talk titled "Is there a place for "place" in social pschology?" The talk will be held in 108 Wolf Hall on Tuesday, September 13th at 3:30 pm.

The talk concerns "place" and its role in our life, with a focus on place identity (as different from other forms of identity), place attachment, and of the interest taken in the place's history as a factor counteracting ethnocentrism and some forms of prejudice. The talked will be based on Professor Lewicka's own studies carried out in numerous places in Poland and the neighboring Ukraine. Professor Lewicka will also focus on the role of emotional bonds with places in a modern, globalized and mobile society.

Wednesday, September 21, 2011 11:30am

Dr. John Ruscio to give Clinical Brown Bag Talk

Dr. Ruscio from the College of New Jersey will give a talk titled "Empirically Supported Guidelines for Implementing the Taxometric Method" on Wednesday, September 21st from 11:30 a.m. - 12:30 p.m. in 108 Wolf. He will present an overview of the taxometric method and some basics about the procedures. He will then discuss some studies of how best to implement the procedures.

Wednesday, September 28, 2011 11:30am

Dr. George Bonanno to give Clinical Brown Bag talk

Dr. George Bonanno from Columbia University will give a talk titled "Beyond Resilience and PTSD: Mapping the Heterogeneity of Responses to Loss and Potential Trauma" on Wednesday, September 28th from 11:30 a.m to 12:30 p.m. in 108 Wolf Hall. Dr. Bonanno will discuss his research on grief and resilience.

Wednesday, September 28, 2011 1:00pm

Dr. Jay Van Bavel from NYU to give Social Brown Bag Talk

Dr. Bavel, from New York University, will be giving a social Brown Bag talk on September 28th from 1:00-2:15 pm in 108 Wolf Hall.

His talked is titled "Self and social categorization: A social neuroscience approach"

Here is a summary of what his talk will cover:

 I will show how the salience, strength and affordances of our social identities shape our representations of the social world. A blend of behavioral and neuroimaging experiments demonstrate that one's current salient social identity-however minimal-can override the effects of another visually-salient social category (i.e., race). The first set of studies provide evidence that membership in a mixed-race team leads to positive automatic evaluations of team members, regardless of their race. However, participants still show automatic racial bias toward targets unaffiliated with their mixed-race team, suggesting that automatic processing is highly flexible, shifting rapidly between team membership and race within a context. The second set of studies provide evidence that membership in a mixed-race team leads to superior recognition memory for team members, regardless of their race. The magnitude of own-group bias is largest among people who are highly identified with their mixed-race team and attenuated when participants are assigned to a role within the team that elicits attention toward members of the other team (i.e., spy). The third set of studies link these processes to underlying brain regions, providing important insights about the function of the amygdala and fusiform gyrus in social perception and evaluation, respectively. These experiments indicate that the most minimal of social identities can shape the rudiments of social perception and evaluation and highlight the underlying neural mechanisms that mediate these processes.