Neuroscience 2019

Dr. Rowshanak Hashemiyoon is the head of the Human Brain and Behavior Laboratory in the Department of Stereotactic and Functional Neurosurgery at the University Hospital of Cologne in Germany. Her work unites scientific research with clinical care. It focuses on identifying the ... altered network dynamics underlying the dysfunctional brain states of neuropsychiatric and neurologic disorders as well as fosters the development of novel treatments which alleviate the symptoms of these disorders. She is currently involved in the study and development of time- and structure-adapted neuromodulation for disease-tailored treatment. A computational neuroscientist by training, she received her PhD with John Chapin from Hahnemann University in Philadelphia while studying the nonlinear dynamics of oscillatory behavior in the subcortical visual system. After a post-doctoral fellowship with David McCormick at the Yale University School of Medicine where she then studied the dynamics of thalamocortical activity in the somatosensory system during normal and epileptic states, she moved to the Center for Complex Systems in Florida to investigate large-scale human brain dynamics during dyadic interaction. While at the University of Miami, she reported the first longitudinal study in humans of the effects of DBS on the underlying neuropathophysiology in a psychiatric disorder. Her work described the dynamics of neuronal activation in correlation with the symptomatology observed in Tourette syndrome, offering important insights into tic genesis and expression. She has now expanded her work to studying the neuropathomechanisms of whole network dysfunction in a range of psychiatric and movement disorders in humans, including OCD, addiction and Parkinson's disease.

Dr. Ottavio Arancio received his Ph.D and M.D. from the University of Pisa (Italy). From 1981 to 1986 he took residency training in Neurology at the University of Verona (Italy). Dr. Arancio has held Faculty appointments at Columbia University, NYU School of Medicine and at ... SUNY HSCB. In 2004 he became Faculty member of the Dept of Pathology & Cell biology and The Taub Institute for Research on Alzheimer's Disease and the Aging Brain at Columbia University. His honors include the "G. Moruzzi Fellowship" (Georgetown University), the "Anna Villa Rusconi Foundation Prize" (Italy), the "INSERM Poste vert Fellowship" (France), the AHAF centennial Award (2007), the Zenith Award (2007), the Margaret Cahn Research Award (2008), and the Edward N. and Della L. Thome Memorial Foundation Award. Dr Arancio is a cellular neurobiologist who has contributed to the characterization of the mechanisms of learning in both normal conditions and during neurodegenerative diseases. During the last ten years he has pioneered the field of mechanisms of synaptic dysfunction in Alzheimer's disease. Dr. Arancio's laboratory has focused primarily on events triggered by amyloid protein. These studies, which have suggested new links between synaptic dysfunction and amyloid protein, are of a general relevance to the field of Alzheimer's disease both for understanding the etiopathogenesis of the disease and for developing therapies aiming to improve the cognitive symptoms.

Dr. Szczepan Baran is the Global Head, Animal Welfare and Compliance Training at Novartis Institutes for Biomedical Research. Dr. Baran received a Bachelor of Science in Pre-Veterinary Medicine from the University of Delaware, a Veterinary Medical Doctoral degree from the ... University of Pennsylvania School of Veterinary Medicine and a Master of Science in Comparative Medicine from the University Of Washington School Of Medicine. In 2005, he joined Fred Hutch Cancer Research Center where he was a member of the team that discovered the first canine embryonic stem cells. Then in 2007 Dr. Baran founded and became COO of the Veterinary Bioscience Institute before his current employment at Novartis. Dr. Baran founded the LinkedIn group "Laboratory Animal Science and Medicine," the largest group in this field. He also served as, Graduate Course Director, Drexel University College of Medicine, Assistant Professor at Delaware Valley, Adjunct Assistant Professor, Department of Pathology, Wake Forest School of Medicine and most notably as Director at Large for the Academy of Surgical Research as well as a Board Member of Americans for Medical Progress. His research interests include use of microfluidics in safety pharmacology and toxicology, the development and validation of online surgical training programs, and the development and validation of rodent endoscopic procedures. Dr. Baran's hobbies include boxing, micro-facial expressions and psychology of adolescent communication.

Professor Burk received a B.S. in Psychology from the University of California-Davis, an M.A. and Ph.D. in experimental psychology from the University of New Hampshire, and completed a post-doctoral fellowship at the Ohio State University. He joined the William & Mary faculty in ... 2002 where is currently an Associate Professor and Chair. Professor Burk was also Director of the Neuroscience Program from 2011-2015 and is currently a Faculty Affiliate in that program. Professor Burk's laboratory studies the neural basis of attention, learning, memory and impulsivity. He has largely focused on the role of cholinergic projections to the cortex in these processes and how these projections are regulated by the neuropeptides orexins (or hypcretins). His laboratory has been funded by grants from the NIH, NARSAD and the Virginia Tobacco Settlement Foundation. His research interests have expanded to studying how neurodiverse students can be more accepted on campus. He has earned some awards including the Phi Beta Kappa's John D. Rockefeller Award for Advancement of Scholarship and a Plumeri Award for Faculty Excellence.

Dr. Anthony A. Grace is a Distinguished Professor of Neuroscience and a Professor of Psychiatry and Psychology at the University of Pittsburgh in Pittsburgh, PA. He received his Ph.D. from Yale University School of Medicine with Dr. Benjamin S. Bunney and had postdoctoral ... training with Dr. Rodolfo Llinas in the Department of Physiology and Biophysics at New York University School of Medicine. Dr. Grace has been involved in translational research related to the dopamine system for over 30 years. His early work pioneered the mode of action of antipsychotic drugs, and the identification and characterization of dopamine-containing neurons, and was the first to provide a means to quantify their activity state and pattern in a way that is the standard in the literature. His current work involves novel treatments for schizophrenia and its prevention, the role of dopamine in anhedonia and affective disorders, and the mode of action of ketamine and novel antidepressant drugs. Dr. Grace has received several awards for his research, including the Paul Janssen Schizophrenia Research Award and the Lilly Basic Scientist Award from the International College of Neuropsychopharmacology, the Efron Award from the American College of Neuropsychopharmacology, as well as a NIMH MERIT award, a Distinguished Investigator Award from the National Alliance for Research in Schizophrenia and Depression, the Judith Silver Memorial Investigator Award from the National Alliance for the Mentally Ill, a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and appointment as a Distinguished Professor of Neuroscience at the University of Pittsburgh. He is also a past member of the governing council of the American College of Neuropsychopharmacology and is on the editorial board for numerous leading journals in the field.

Dr. Ulrich Hengst studied biochemistry at the Ruhr University Bochum, Germany, and conducted his graduate research at the Friedrich Miescher Institute for Biomedical Research in Basel, Switzerland, in the group of Prof. Denis Monard. In 2003 he received his PhD from the ... University of Basel. For his postdoctoral training, Dr. Hengst joined the laboratory of Samie R. Jaffrey, MD, PhD at the Weill Cornell Medical College in New York, NY. In Dr. Jaffreys group, he investigated the role of axonally localized mRNAs for axonal development leading to the identification of the first examples of specific mRNAs that are translated in axons in response to extracellular signaling molecules and that mediate growth cone collapse and axon elongation, respectively. In 2009, Dr. Hengst joined the Department of Pathology and Cell Biology and the Taub Institute for Research on Alzheimers Disease and the Aging Brain at Columbia University Medical Center in New York, NY, as an Assistant Professor. He has successfully established new research projects addressing the role of local protein synthesis in Alzheimers disease and neurodevelopment.

Dr. Haber's research focuses on the neural network underlying learning and decision-making that leads to action plan development. The cortico-basal ganglia-thalamic system is central to this network and comprises a diverse group of structures involved in reward and motivation ... cognition and motor control. Pathology of this network is implicated in several mental health disorders including drug addiction, obsessive-compulsive disorder, and schizophrenia. Her lab is addressing the hypothesis that cortico-basal ganglia connections are critical for integrating information across functional domains. The lab is also investigating which pathways are stimulated during deep brain stimulation, a therapy now being actively investigated for depression and obsessive-compulsive disorder and understanding postnatal changes in the cortico-basal ganglia system associated with specific developmental milestones and the high level of plasticity during early learning. Dr. Haber received her Ph.D. in neuro-and bio-behavioral sciences from Stanford University.

Dr. Paul J. Mathews received his bachelors degree from the University of Oregon where he studied invertebrate behavioral plasticity in the lab of Dr. Nathan Tublitz. He received his Ph.D. in neuroscience from the University of Texas at Austin under the mentorship of Dr. Nace ... Golding. Dr. Mathews work focused on understanding how the biophysical properties of specific voltage-gated ion channels in an auditory brainstem nuclei contribute to their capacity to make sub-millisecond computations necessary for low frequency sound localization. For the past several years Dr. Mathews has been working at UCLA under the mentorship of Dr. Tom Otis where he is currently working to uncover the cerebellar circuit mechanisms that underlie motor learning and memory. To do this Dr. Mathews is utilizing a multifaceted approach that includes both in vitro and in vivo electrophysiology, optogenetics, advanced optics, histology, and behavioral manipulations to make links between cerebellar circuit activity and motor output in rodent models. He is currently on the job market looking for a tenured track assistant professor position.

Philip Mitchell is Scientia Professor and Head of the School of Psychiatry at University of New South Wales in Sydney, Australia; Member, Australian National Health and Medical Research Council Research Committee; Vice-President (Governance), International Society for Bipolar ... Disorders; and Board Member, Black Dog Institute. His research and clinical interests are in bipolar disorder and depression, with a particular focus on: predictors of the development of bipolar disorder in at-risk individuals; molecular genetics of bipolar disorder; pharmacological and psychological treatments for bipolar disorder and depression; clinical phenomenology of bipolar disorder and depression; and neurostimulatory therapies for depression. Professor Mitchell has published over 450 peer-reviewed papers or book chapters and is lead investigator on an Australian NHMRC-funded Program Grant on depression and bipolar disorder.He serves on the editorial boards of ‘Psychiatric Genetics', ‘CNS Drugs', ‘CNS Spectrums', ‘Frontiers in Behavioral and Psychiatric Genetics',‘Future Neurology', ‘International Journal of Bipolar Disorders', ‘Medicine Today' and ‘Therapeutic Advances in Psychopharmacology'. In 2002 he was awarded the Senior Research Award of the Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Psychiatrists (RANZCP).In 2004, he received the Founders Medal of the Australasian Society for Psychiatry Research.In 2008, he was invited to give the endowed Samuel Novey Lecture in Psychological Medicine at Johns Hopkins University, Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences. In the 2010 Australia Day honours list Professor Mitchell was appointed as a Member of the Order of Australia for service to medical education, particularly in the field of psychiatry, as an academic, researcher and practitioner, through contributions to the understanding, treatment and prevention of mental illnesses. In 2013 he was awarded the College Citation of the RANZCP for exceptional service to psychiatry.

Dr. Peters received her Ph.D. in computational cognitive neuroscience from UCLA in 2014. Her research aims to reveal how the brain represents and uses uncertainty and uncertain information to perform probabilistic computations that produce adaptive behavior, perception, and ... awareness. Dr. Peters uses neuroimaging, computational modeling, machine learning and neural stimulation techniques to study these topics.

Following a career in basic research in chemistry, molecular biology and neurobiology (glutatmate and nitric oxide transmission, neuro Research Institute (Zurich University), I moved towards "bench to bed" research at the Center for Psychiatric Neuroscience (Department of ... Psychiatry, Lausanne University Hospital). I set up a translational research program aimed at a better understanding of the causes and mechanisms leading to schizophrenia phenotypes in order to develop markers for early diagnosis, new drug targets as well as preventive and therapeutic measures. Building on an innovative hypothesis, I could demonstrate that oxidative stress/redox dysregulation induced, among others, by glutathione (GSH) deficit, may represent a "hub" on which both genetic and environmental risk factors converge during neurodevelopment, leading to the impairment of neural connectivity and synchronization, and to cognitive deficits as observed in patients. These mechanisms have been comprehensively documented in experimental models. Based on these relevant neurobiological data, a precursor of GSH, N administered to chronic patients. This double blind, placebo controlled add trial with NAC showed a net improvement potentials (mismatch negativity), neural synchronization, and produced no side effects. These promising results led a new clinical trial with young patients during their first psychotic episode, paving the way for risk subjects. In addition to my research activities, I serve as director of the Unit of Research in Schizophrenia and director of the Center for Psychiatric Neuroscience, where we also work on professional education and cure of major psychiatric disorders.

Ahmad Salehi, M.D., Ph.D. is a Clinical Associate Professor at the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, Stanford Medical School and the Director of the Translational Laboratory at the VA Palo Alto Health Care System in California. He obtained his MD in Tehran, Iran ... and then moved to the Netherlands Institute for Brain Research, in Amsterdam to get his PhD. While he was there, he was selected as the best junior scientist in the field of Alzheimers disease in the Netherlands. After finishing his graduate studies and 3 years of postdoc in Amsterdam, he moved to Stanford Medical School. First as a postdoc, and then as a Senior Research Associate, he worked on mechanisms of failed axonal transport in mouse models of Down syndrome. For almost a decade, he was the Director of Stanford Brain Bank. Since 2009, Dr. Salehi has moved to the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at Stanford. In December 2010, he received the World Technology Award in the field of Biotechnology for his innovative work on the use of mouse models of Down syndrome. During his carrier, Ahmad has been involved in publication of a large number of papers from which several have appeared on the cover of Science, Cell: Stem Cell, Science Translational Medicine, Neuroscience and Bio-behavior Reviews, and Biological Psychiatry (twice).

Dr. Katerina Venderova obtained her master's and doctorate degrees in pharmacy, and her PhD in Toxicology from Charles University in the Czech Republic. She then received a fellowship from the Parkinson Society Canada and pursued her postdoctoral training at Toronto Western ... Research Institute (2 years), and subsequently at University of Ottawa in Canada (5 years), where she studied genetics of Parkinson's disease, mechanisms of neuronal death and cell signaling in the basal ganglia. Dr. Venderova joined Pacific in 2011.

Valerie Voon is a neuropsychiatrist and neuroscientist at the University of Cambridge. She is a Medical Research Council Senior Clinical Fellow. She completed her psychiatry residency at the University of Toronto, a research fellowship at the National Institute of Neurological ... Disorders and Stroke and a PhD in neuroscience through the University College London. Her research group uses multimodal approaches to understand mechanisms underlying impulsivity and compulsivity across repetitive behaviours. Dr. Voon's research group focuses on mechanisms underlying impulsivity and compulsivity and relevance to disorders of addiction across both drug and natural rewards. She uses a multimodal approach including anatomical and functional MRI, PET, pharmacological challenges, computational modelling and cognitive neuroscience. She has published extensively with over 100 peer-reviewed publications including in high impact journals such as Neuron, Molecular Psychiatry, Lancet Neurology, Annals of Neurology, Brain and Biological Psychiatry. She is a Fellow of the American Neuropsychiatric Association.

Dr. Willerth currently holds a Canada Research Chair in Biomedical Engineering at the University of Victoria where she is dually appointed in the Department of Mechanical Engineering and Division of Medical Sciences. Her research group investigates how to engineer neural tissue ... by combining pluripotent stem cells, controlled drug delivery and biomaterial scaffolds . She has given invited talks at the Till and McCulloch Annual Meeting and at the 1st Annual British Columbia Stem Cell and Regeneration Medicine Initiative Meeting as well as presented at the 9th Annual World Biomaterials Congress in Chengdu, China. She belongs to both the Brain Research Centre (BRC) and the International Collaboration on Repair Discoveries (ICORD) - B.C. based organizations committed to treating brain diseases and disorders and finding long term treatments for the repair of spinal cord injuries respectively. Before accepting her faculty position, Dr. Willerth completed an NIH post doctoral fellowship at the University of California-Berkeley and graduate studies at Washington University.