A yearly ICLM meeting primarily for Southern California laboratories interested in plasticity and learning. Everyone is invited, and attendance is free. It is designed to promote collaborations and interactions between the many outstanding laboratories working in this field in Southern California. It is also a valuable resource for students and post-doctoral fellows interested since it provides an opportunity for them to be exposed to the breath and richness of our learning and memory community.
The 2026 Southern California Learning and Memory Symposium will take place on Monday, June 1, 2026 (please, mark your calendars) in the NRB building auditorium at UCLA!
Event Registration Deadline: May 22nd
Symposium Program
8:30: Continental Breakfast
9:00: Welcome Remarks: Carlos Portera-Cailliau
Session 1
9:05: Michael Fanselow (University of California, Los Angeles) Pavlovian Sensitization
9:30: Andy Alexander (University of California, Santa Barbara) Predictive Pursuit Emerges in Real and Artificial Neural Networks
9:55: Andrew Wikenheiser (University of California, Los Angeles) Disentangling Exploration and Exploitation In Naturalistic Foraging Context
Break 10:20-10:35
Session 2
10:35: Stephanie Leal (University of California, Los Angeles) Post-Encoding Music Shapes Memory Precision
11:00: Lindsay De Biase (University of California, Los Angeles) How Do Microglia Shape Cognitive Changes During Aging?
11:25: Stephanie Correa (University of California, Los Angeles) Estrogens Shape Thermoregulation Across Physiological States
Lunch 11:50-1:00
Session 3
1:00: Doug Nitz (University of California, San Diego) Encoding of Environmental Structure and Organization Across Subiculum and Retrosplenial Cortex
1:25: Alex Huk (University of California, Los Angeles) A Population-level Look at Delay Period Activity During Oculomotor Working Memory
1:50: Brian Wiltgen (University of California, Davis) Dopamine Release From The Locus Coeruleus Enables Temporal Binding in the Hippocampus
Break 2:15-2:30
Session 4
2:30: Marcelo Wood (University of California, Irvine) Investigating the Interface of Epigenetics and Metabolism Underlying Synaptic Plasticity and Memory Formation
2:55: Stephanie White (University of California, Los Angeles) Vocal Learning and the Social Brain: Insights from Songbirds to Humans
3:20: Takaki Komiyama (University of California, San Diego) Gating of Learning-Related Plasticity in Health and Disease
Break 3:45-4:00
Session 5
4:00: Jesse Rissman (University of California, Los Angeles) Spontaneous Emergence Of Context-Dependent Statistical Learning in Humans and Neural Networks
4:25: Maureen Ritchey (University of California, Los Angeles) What Episodic Memory Reveals About The Default Mode Network
4:50: Bruce McNaughton (University of California, Irvine) Enriched Experience: Rewiring the Cortex for Efficient Learning
5:15: Concluding Remarks: Sotiris Masmandis
We gratefully acknowledge support from the Brain Research Institute and the Departments of Physiology, Psychology, Neurobiology, and Neurology.
