Neuroscience 2020 has been cancelled.

Motor performance is not evaluated against a fixed target but against personal benchmarks that change with learning. Evaluating your tennis forehand relative to your past forehands is more useful than comparing it to your target of swinging like Federer...

In the mammalian visual system, three functionally distinct parallel processing streams extend from retina to visual thalamus and then to visual cortex: magnocellular, parvocellular, and koniocellular. Tree shrews ( Tupaia belangeri ), a pre-primate species, provide an advantageous model to study the koniocellular pathway in isolation because, while magnocellular and parvocellular pathways remain mixed in Lamina 1(L1), L2, L4, and L5 of the lateral geniculate nucleus (LGN), L3 and L6 receive strictly koniocellular input from the contralateral eye. Additionally, koniocellular-input laminae selectively receive glutamatergic axons from the superior colliculus (SC). To reveal how cellular and synaptic properties of koniocellular geniculate laminae may differ from magnocellular/parvocellular laminae, and how SC input may shape the koniocellular relay to cortex, we studied the morphology and connectivity of retinal and tectal terminals in pathway-specific laminae. While confirming that K-laminae relay cells cont...

An effective oral presentation engages the audience and uses slides to give a clear and concise overview of research material. Panel presentations (symposia, minisymposia, clinical roundtables, and nanosymposia) as a whole should not be disjointed but should draw together several ideas from multiple researchers that relate to a centralized topical interest. Lectures should be summaries or overviews of work in a field, not research seminars. Clearly-stated learning objectives should be presented at the start of the lecture to convey anticipated learning outcomes to an audience with a wide range of backgrounds.

Watch on demand the How to Organize a Nanosymposium webinar.

The Society for Neuroscience (SfN) is pleased to recognize Abcam as the Sponsor of the Day for the second day of Neuroscience 2022, Sunday, November 13, 2022.

Humans can adapt their movements in response to expected and unexpected perturbations. The speed and accuracy of these movement corrections may depend on the type of sensory information driving the perception of these perturbations. While previous research has indicated that corrections based on somatosensory information, comprised of proprioceptive and tactile inputs, are faster than corrections based on visual information, other studies have found comparable correction speeds in response to visual and tactile inputs. The purpose of this study was to systematically investigate the latencies (how fast) and magnitudes (how large) of movement corrections in response to perturbations of external visual targets, as well as somatosensory (proprioceptive and tactile) and tactile targets on the non-reaching limb. Participants performed reaching movements to a light-emitting diode (i.e., visual target), the felt position of a brush touching the index finger of the non-reaching hand (i.e., a tactile target), and th...

Extracellular recordings in freely moving mice, especially those with movable electrodes (microdrives), are crucial for understanding brain function. However, existing microdrives are often heavy, expensive, fragile, and unsuited for long-term studies with multichannel recordings. The OptoDrive is a new, lightweight (3.2 g), low-cost system for chronic neural recordings and optogenetic manipulation in mice. It features a detachable, 16-channel tungsten-wire electrode assembly with a 3 mm stroke (15 μm step displacement) and an integrated optical fiber. This system enables repeated implantation and explantation without surgery, requiring only gas anesthesia. The OptoDrive has demonstrated stable recordings from the lateral hypothalamus of freely behaving mice for nearly 1 month and successful optogenetic silencing of neuronal activity. In conclusion, OptoDrive offers a cost-effective, compact solution for long-term electrophysiology and optogenetics in freely moving mice.

As you read these words, light is striking your retinas, triggering chemical and electrical cascades. For the information contained within these wavelengths to be of use to you, your brain must encode, process, and transform it into more abstract representations ([Treisman, 1986][1]). Importantly,

Read science policy and advocacy news from the week of February 17, 2017.