The Inaugural Elizabeth Doty Lecture
The Department of Neurobiology and Anatomy is proud to host the newly establishment Elizabeth Doty Lectureship. Robert W. Doty, PhD, created this neuroscience lectureship to honor his wife and the 58 years they shared in marriage. The Dotys came to the University of Rochester in 1961, where Dr. Doty has been a professor for over 45 years.
A particular passion of Dr. Doty’s has been a quest to understand the meaning of consciousness and its underlying neural basis. Hence, the topic of this lectureship is, “Consciousness from Neurons.” In his publication of the same title, Dr. Doty captures his enthusiasm: “What more challenging quest than to learn how the multimillioned shuttling of damp sparks can weave a comprehending self within the fatty fabric of the brain!”
Each lecture will address in some way how the workings of the mind derive from neuronal activity. Examples of topics include binocular rivalry, synesthesia, blindsight, hemispatial neglect, coma, the neuronal control of goal-directed movement, inter-hemispheric interactions, emotional states, and others.
The intent of the Lecture is to appeal to a wide and diverse audience to include all interested in the neural sciences – faculty, alumni, students, and other scholars. Each year the lecturer will be chosen by a committee with members derived from departments most closely related to the nervous system. The Lecture will vary from year to year in order to reflect the different perspectives of this broad community.
The Department of Neurobiology and Anatomy is proud to call Dr. Doty one of our own. We are thankful for the remarkable gift he has given us in the Elizabeth Doty Lectureship, and we look forward to hosting world-class speakers for years to come.
Undergraduate in NBA Laboratory wins National Science Foundation Graduate Fellowship
Graduating senior Rachel Hawe (B.S., Biomedical Engineering, 2008) has been selected to receive an NSF Graduate Research Fellowship to pursue her Ph.D. at Northwestern University. Rachel, who is from Alexandria, Virginia, pursued neuroengineering research with Martha Gdowski in the Neurobiology & Anatomy Department during all four of her years at the University of Rochester. She also had a summer research experience at Marquette University, and plans to pursue research in Neuroengineering and Rehabilitation at Northwestern University. When she wasn't in the research laboratory, Rachel was also very active in the Society of Women Engineers, serving as president during her junior year, and providing leadership and outreach all four years.
Julie Fudge, MD sponsors Symposium at this year's SFN Annual Meeting in San Diego
Beyond the Nucleus Accumbens: Limbic Subregions of the Caudal Ventral Striatum
The panel will update the audience on the presence and importance of a novel limbic region of the caudal primate striatum. Recognition of this limbic subregion, and its scope beyond the classic “ventral striatum” (nucleus accumbens), has implications for data interpretation in drug addiction, reward, and emotion research. Speakers will review the classic striatal circuits, and present evidence for a caudal limbic zone of the striatum based on a variety of recent studies, from anatomic investigations in animals to physiologic and pharmacologic imaging studies in humans.
Joseph Holt Visits UR
Joseph C. Holt, Assistant Professor in the Department of Otolaryngology at The University of Texas Medical Branch will be giving a talk on Monday, 12 November at 1:30pm in K-307. Refreshments will follow.
Vestibular Efferents: A System in Search of a Function
Many sensory systems are endowed with efferent feedback mechanisms that can modulate their primary input to the brain. That is, incominginformation from a peripheral detector is delivered to a way station within the CNS which then modifies the output from that same detector. Everyday examples include the pupillary reflex to bright light entering the eyes, the contraction of middle ear muscles to loud sounds, or the recruitment of additional muscle fibers when first lifting a heavy object. Here, the function of the efferent loop is presumably to optimize or “tune”each sensory modality to its stimulus. Sensory information regarding the position and movement of the head are encoded by the vestibular system, which begins as a number of small detectors located within the inner ear. Like the preceding examples, the peripheral vestibular system is also endowed with a prominent efferent innervation. The functional role of this feedback system, however, is relatively unknown. We do know that when these efferent pathwaysare electrically stimulated, afferent output from vestibular endorgans is profoundly inhibited or excited, suggesting that vestibular efferents may be involved in both negative and positive feedback. If such efferent activity occurs under physiological conditions, it is almost certain to modify and transform vestibular information traveling to the CNS. Yet, verylittle information is available as to how and when these efferent actions ultimately impact the processing of vestibular information in an alert animal. Taking a reductionistic approach, my lab is addressing the function of the vestibular efferent system from three vantage points:
- Identifying the receptor mechanisms by which different efferent responses are generated during activation of their pathways;
- Characterizing how these efferent receptor mechanisms modulate afferent response properties by pairing afferent recordings during vestibular stimulation with activation of efferent pathways; and
- Identification of efferent discharge patterns with direct,in vivo recordings from vestibular efferent neurons. Such knowledge is critical in evaluating efferent function in behaving animal models.
This talk will summarize our current observations.
Robert H. Schor, PhD
July 1, 2007 marks the beginning of Dr. Robert H. Schor's appointment as Associate Professor of Neurobiology & Anatomy. Bob comes to us from the University of Pittsburgh Departments of Otolaryngology and Neurobiology. His research interests include the processing of spatial and temporal information by the vestibular system of mammals with special interest in the integration of linear acceleration senses from otolith organs. He is presently the Associate Editor of the Journal of Vestibular Research (since 2001).
After receiving a BS in Biology in 1967 from the California Institute of Technology, he earned his PhD in Neurophysiology from the Rockefeller University in 1973. Bob did postdoctoral fellowships at the University of Chicago (1973-1975), University of Pittsburgh (1975-1976), and University of Tokyo (1976-1978). He joined the faculty at Rockefeller University in 1978, moving to the University of Pittsburgh in 1986.
Gregory C. DeAngelis, PhD
The Department of Neurobiology & Anatomy is delighted to announce the joint appointment of Dr. Gregory C. DeAngelis as Professor of Neurobiology and Anatomy, along with his primary appointment as Professor of Brain and Cognitive Science. This cross-campus endeavor includes Biomedical Engineering and is a testament to the interactive and collaborative nature of our neuroscience community.
The main goal of the work in the DeAngelis lab is to understand the neural basis of visual perception and visually-guided behavior. Current research in the DeAngelis lab has 3 main foci: 1) neural mechanisms of depth perception from binocular disparity and motion parallax; 2) neural substrates of multi-sensory (visual/vestibular) integration for self-motion perception; and 3) neural mechanisms of optimal (i.e., Bayesian) cue integration. This work combines quantitative electrophysiology and psychophysics in non-human primates, statistical analysis of neural and behavioral data, and computational modeling of neural population codes.