Dwight E. Bergles, Ph.D. Professor The Solomon H. Snyder Department of Neuroscience Johns Hopkins School of Medicine Receptors, Synapses and Memories
Richard L. Huganir, Ph.D. Professor and Director, Department of Neuroscience; Co-Director, Johns Hopkins Brain Science Institute; Professor, Department of Biological Chemistry; Investigator, Howard Hughes Medical Institute The Imagining Brain: Mood Disorders and Creativity
Kay Redfield Jamison, Ph.D. The Dalio Family Professor in Mood Disorders Professor of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences Using clinical observations of eye movement disorders to discover how the brain works
As neurologists we are often given the opportunity to learn about brain function from the unfortunate maladies of our patients. This new information also provides clues for better diagnosis and treatment. Here we will use disorders of eye movements, and in particular saccades (the rapid eye movements we use to change our gaze). We discuss three examples, patients who make abnormally slow saccades, patients who make uncalled for saccades, and patients who experience dizziness and imbalance as they climb out of the MRI machine. In each case we were able to make a major advance forward in understanding how the brain works, and how we might better treat our patients.
Ramat S, Leigh RJ, Zee DS, Optican LM. What clinical disorders tell us about the neural control of saccadic eye movements. Brain, 130:10-35, 2007.
Shaikh, A.G., Miura, K., Optican, L.M., Ramat, S., Leigh, R.J., Zee,D.S., A new familial disease of saccadic oscillations and limb tremor provides clues to mechanisms of common tremor disorders.Brain, 130:3020-3031, 2007.
Roberts, DC, Marcelli, V, Gillen, JS, Carey, JP, DellaSantina, CC, Zee, DS, MRI magnetic field stimulates rotational sensors of the brain, Current Biology, 2011.
David S. Zee, M.D. Professor, Departments of Neurology, Ophthalmology, Otolaryngology-head and neck surgery, and Neuroscience Challenges of Treating Tumors in the Brain
Henry Brem, MD Harvey Cushing Professor and Chairman, Department of Neurosurgery Professor of Neurosurgery, Oncology, Ophthalmology, and Biomedical Engineering Neurosurgeon-in-Chief Of Monkeys and Mechanisms: The SIV Model of HIV
HIV pathogenesis in large part is mediated by hyperactivation of both innate and adaptive arms of the immune system. These responses separate natural hosts of HIV infection, which do not manifest disease, from non-natural hosts such as humans, which do. We have developed an SIV/macaque model that closely recapitulates AIDS and neurological disease in HIV-infected individuals. We are using this model to design rational therapeutics that suppress the hyper-responsiveness of the immune system yet do not further immunosuppress infected individuals.
M. Christine Zink, DVM, PhD, ACVP Professor and Director, Department of Molecular and Comparative Pathobiology Motor Neurons, Genes, and Synapses: Finding a Treatment for Spinal Muscular Atrophy
Charlotte Sumner, MD Assistant Professor, Department of Neurology Beauty and the Brain: A Neural Approach to Aesthetics of Abstract Sculpture
Why do people spend millions of dollars and years of work on monumental sculptures that have no practical function or utility? Because human visual experience is so rich that it has its own inherent value, which we call aesthetics. Great sculptors can evoke compelling visual experiences that justify the time and expense involved in their work. The power of such visual experiences must ultimately derive from visual representation systems of the brain. In this talk, Ed Connor discusses how the brain represents 3D shape and how shape representation might relate to aesthetic experience.
Yukako Yamane, Eric T Carlson, Katherine C Bowman, Zhihong Wang& Charles E Connor. A neural code for three-dimensional object shape in macaque inferotemporal cortex. Nature Neuroscience 11, 1352 - 1360 (2008)
Ed Connor, Ph.D. Professor, Solomon H. Snyder Department of Neuroscience Director, Zanvyl Krieger Mind/Brain Institute Love, Sex and Brain Evolution
I will argue that humans are truly the all-time twisted sex deviants of the mammalian world. Not because some of us get turned on by the sight of automobile exhaust systems, the smell of unwashed feet, or the idea of traffic cops in bondage. Rather, because the most prosaic and culturally sanctioned aspects of sexual activity in humans are far outside the mainstream of behavior for most of our closest animal relatives. How did it come to be this way? I contend that the most important determinant of human amorous and sexual behavior derive from quirky and suboptimal brain evolution. Within this evolutionary framework, I will discuss the brain's role in romantic love and mate choice, sexual arousal, orgasm and sexual orientation.
Linden, D.J. (2007) The Accidental Mind: How Brain Evolution Has Given Us Love, Memory, Dreams and God. Belknap Press of the Harvard University Press. Cambridge, MA. Translations: Spanish, Italian, German, Japanese, Korean and Chinese.
Linden, D.J. (in press) Feels So Good: Vice, Virtue and the Brain’s Pleasure Circuits. Viking Press, New York, NY.
David Linden, Ph.D. Professor of Neuroscience The Cost of Time in Motor Control
There is consistency in how healthy people move their eyes, arms, and legs. What is good about this way of moving, and why has our brain settled on this pattern? Here, I focus on the control of eye movements and suggest that the purpose of any movement is to acquire a more rewarding state. I suggest that the way the brain discounts reward in time explains why we move the way that we do. This framework has the potential to explain why disorders that affect processing of reward in the brain, like Parkinson's disease, depression, and Schizophrenia, result in changes in control of eye movements.
Reza Shadmehr, Ph.D. Professor of Biomedical Engineering and Neuroscience Viral Encephalitis: How do Neurons Recover?
Diane Griffin, M.D., Ph.D. Alfred and Jill Sommer Professor and Chair in Molecular Microbiology and Immunology Professor of Neurology and Medicine Cell Phone While Driving: How the Brain Multitasks
Multitasking is ubiquitous in the modern world – we are faced with juggling the flow of information from a plethora of multimedia devices (computers, phones, TV, radio) competing for our attention. Among the most common, and potentially dangerous, cases of multitasking is talking on a mobile phone while driving. In this talk, Steven Yantis describes evidence that two tasks really can’t be carried out as rapidly as each alone – and switching between tasks comes with an almost completely unavoidable cost in time or accuracy. He explains how the architecture of the brain contains a structural bottleneck that leads to a delay in decision making when two incompatible tasks are carried out at the same time. Functional brain imaging experiments show how the brain responds during tasks requiring shifts of attention between vision and hearing, and how the brain controls the flow of information from the world that is used to guide action.
Steven Yantis, Ph.D. Professor and Chair Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences Frizzled Receptors in Development and Disease
"In biology, it is often useful to define the quanititative rules governing a process, even if the underlying mechanisms are unknown"
Jeremy Nathans, M.D., Ph.D. Professor, Molecular Biology and Genetics, Neuroscience, and Ophthalmology HIV in the Brain: A Persistent Headache
"Are there therapeutic approaches that will augment HAART for treating HIV infection in CNS?"
Janice E. Clements, Ph.D. Vice Dean for Faculty and Executive Director, BSi; Mary Wallace Stanton Professor of Faculty Affairs; University Distinguished Professor, Molecular and Comparative Patholobiology; Professor, Neurology and Pathology Novel Neural Messengers
Huntington's Disease (HD) was presumably 'solved' when the culprit gene, encoding for the protein huntington was cloned in 1993. However, this discovery only heightened the disease's mystery, as HD is characterized by a massive, sometimes 90% shrinkage of the corpus striatum with far less damage to other brain regions and no systemic symptoms even though huntingtin is expressed uniformly throughout the brain and the rest of the body. We discovered that a striatal-selective protein Rhes binds avidly to mutant huntingtin and causes its transformation to a soluble, toxic form. Therapeutic possibilities emerge, as drugs blocking the binding of Rhes to mutant huntingtin might prevent/slow disease onset.
Solomon H. Snyder, M.D., D.Sc., D.Phil. (Hon. Causa) Distinguished Service Professor of Neuroscience, Pharmacology and Psychiatry Music for Deaf Ears: Perception of Pitch, Rhythm and Timbre in Cochlear Implant Users
Charles J. Limb, M.D. Assistant Professor, Department of Otolaryngology-Head and Neck SurgeryFaculty, Peabody Conservatory of Music
