Special Events
WINTER 2015
THE CHARLES H. (TOM) SAWYER DISTINGUISHED LECTURE
March 3, 2015. 4pm. Neuroscience Research Building Auditorium
Catherine Woolley, PhD, presents “Neurosteroid Estrogens in the Hippocampus: Implications for Epilepsy”
Abstract: There is growing awareness that estrogens may be produced in the brain as neurosteroids that act locally within specific brain regions to modulate neurophysiology on a time scale of minutes. This lecture will review key findings on acute estrogen actions in the hippocampus, a limbic brain structure commonly involved in temporal lobe epilepsy. Sex-dependent molecular mechanisms by which estrogens acutely regulate synapses in the hippocampus will be discussed as well as pre-clinical evidence of a link between neurosteroid estrogens and limbic seizures in both sexes.
Dr. Woolley is the William Deering Professor, department of neurobiology, Northwestern University, Evanston, Illinois. Her research focuses on steroid regulation of synaptic
structure and function, and the consequences of steroid-driven synaptic modulation for behavior.
Host Art Arnold, PhD, is director of the Laboratory of Neuroendocrinology and distinguished professor, department of integrative biology & physiology at UCLA.
The Charles H. (Tom) Sawyer Distinguished Lecture is an annual event honoring the late Dr. Sawyer, who was a distinguished emeritus professor of neurobiology at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA. Dr. Sawyer was one of five founding members of the Brain Research Institute and established the institute’s Laboratory of Neuroendocrinology, which has since become a leading center for research and education in the field. More here.
THE BRAIN RESEARCH INSTITUTE 26th ANNUAL H.W. MAGOUN LECTURE
March 10, 2015. 4pm. Neuroscience Research Building Auditorium
Istvan Mody, PhD, presents “Inhibition in the Brain: Watching the Wheels go Round and Round”
Abstract: Diversity in the brain is embodied by the GABAergic system. Neurons using GABA as a transmitter are the most varied, GABA receptors are vastly numerous and divergent, and the function of the GABAergic machinery loosely called inhibition can turn into excitation “on a dime” or can synchronize large neuronal ensembles. This lecture will present snapshots of studies about inhibition in the brain done in collaboration with Dr. Mody's colleagues at UCLA. He will also show some of the newest findings about the possible obstruction of learning and memory in the aged brain by GABAergic inhibition.
Dr. Mody is professor in the departments of neurology and physiology at UCLA. His research focuses on the physiology, pharmacology, and pathology of synaptic transmission in the mammalian brain, and the regulation of intracellular calcium homeostasis. More here.
Host Chris Evans, PhD, is director of the BRI, Hatos Center for Neuropharmacology Professor, in the department of psychiatry and biobehavioral sciences at UCLA.
The H.W. Magoun Lecture is an annual event recognizing outstanding achievements by Brain Research Institute faculty in honor of institute founder Horace Winchell Magoun.
The late Dr. Magoun (pictured right) was also the founding chair of the UCLA department of anatomy and emeritus professor of the department of psychiatry where he helped develop the department’s division of biobehavioral sciences. He was a pioneering neuroscientist who made fundamental contributions to the knowledge of how the brain functions, and the relationship between brain and behavior. More here.
