Stanford Neurosciences Institute

Professor Krishna Shenoy, Professor of Electrical Engineering at Stanford, discusses how Brain Machine Interfaces (BMIs) converts movement intentions from neurons in the brain into control signals for guiding prosthetic arms and computer cursors.

Dr. William Newsome, Harman Family Provostial Professor, Vincent V. C. Woo Director of the Stanford Neurosciences Institute, and Professor of Neurobiology, delivered the closing remarks for the 2016 Symposium of the Stanford Neurosciences Institute.

Professor William Newsome welcomes everyone to the 2016 Symposium of the Stanford Neurosciences Institute.

Dr. Helen Bronte-Stewart is the John E Cahill Family Professor in the department of Neurology and Neurological Sciences at Stanford give a talk about recent advances in wearable physiosensors and sensing neurostimulators which are enabling us to study the brain’s effect on Parkinson’s disease motor signs, such as tremor, bradykinesia and rigidity, in real time in freely moving human subjects.

Dr. Connie Cepko, the Bullard Professor of Genetics and Neuroscience at Harvard Medical School and an Investigator of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, gives a great talk the diversity and number of cell types that one finds in the central nervous system of vertebrates which provokes many questions regarding the mechanisms used to generate them.

Dr. Tom Dean, a research scientist at Google in Mountain View, discusses the idea of an intermediate or meso-scale computational theory that connects a molecular (micro-scale) account of neural function to a behavioral (macro-scale) account of animal cognition and environmental complexity.

Keith Humphreys is a Professor and the Section Director for Mental Health Policy in the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at Stanford University. He is also a Senior Research Career Scientist at the VA Health Services Research Center in Palo Alto. His research addresses the prevention and treatment of addictive disorders, and, public policy information. In his talk he talks about how public policy is necessary to manage human interaction with potent psychoactive substances and their potential for great benefit and great harm.

Tony Wyss-Coray is a professor of Neurology and Neurological Sciences at Stanford University, the Co-Director of the Stanford Alzheimer’s Disease Research Center, and the Associate Director of the Center for Tissue Regeneration, Repair and Restoration at the Palo Alto VA. In this talk he talks about blood borne factors from young mice or humans are sufficient to slow aspects of brain aging and improve cognitive function in old mice, and vice versa, factors from old mice are detrimental for young mice and impair cognition.

Professor Steven Hyman, Director of the Stanley center for Psychiatric Research at the Board Institute, reviews the genetic analysis of schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, and autism spectrum disorders and discusses why we are pursuing genetic analysis to completion.

Anne Brunet, Professor of Genetics at Stanford University, is interested in understanding agin based on the integration of model organisms with diverse lifespans.

Dr. Ann Arvin, Vice Provost and Dean of Research at Stanford University and Professor of Pediatrics and Professor of Pediatrics and Microbiology and Immunology, delivered the closing remarks for the 2015 Symposium of the Stanford Neurosciences Institute.

David Tank, Professor of neuroscience and molecular biology at Princeton University, focused on the mechanisms of persistent neural activity and the development and application of rodent virtual reality systems, large-scale optical recording and electrophysiology to study neural circuit dynamics during navigation.

Nikolaus Kriegeskorte, Programme Leader at the Medical Research Council's Cognition and Brain Sciences Unit in Cambridge, UK, describes a framework for testing such massively multivariate brain-activity data.

Rachel I. Wilson, Professor of Basic Research in the Field of Neurobiology at Harvard Medical School, discussed the fundamental neural computations underlying sensory processing in the Drosophila central nervous system, as well as the biophysical mechanisms that implement those computations.

Professor William Newsome welcomes everyone to the Symposium of the Stanford Neurosciences Institute.

In my lifetime, there has never been a moment like this one… in terms of the speed and acceleration of discovery.” William Newsome, director of the Stanford Neurosciences Institute, says new technologies are allowing researchers to make significant progress in understanding the brain. https://neuroscience.stanford.edu/

What about our brains allows us be one person at the office and a very different person at home? Professor William Newsome explains how a constant rewiring of neural connectivity enables the "socially sensitive" production of behavior. https://neuroscience.stanford.edu/

Nerve damage in the brain and the spinal cord is almost always permanent. But treatments to promote functional and behavioral healing are on the horizon as researchers begin to understand the molecules at play behind neuronal growth. https://neuroscience.stanford.edu/

Researchers are working on new ways of restoring plasticity in the brain after it’s damaged by stroke. https://neuroscience.stanford.edu/

How do we learn and remember? What technologies might allow us to peer into the brain and even manipulate its function? How could a deeper understanding of the brain influence public policy, education and the law? In this session of Open Office Hours, William Newsome, professor of neurobiology and director of the Stanford Neurosciences Institute, discusses the big questions that brain researchers are still trying to answer. https://neuroscience.stanford.edu/

Karl Deisseroth at the Inaugural Symposium of Stanford Neurosciences Institute. https://neuroscience.stanford.edu Part of the Inaugural Symposium of Stanford Neurosciences Institute recorded on October 10, 2014.

Stanford President John Hennessy delivers the final remarks of the Symposium. He discusses the future of the Stanford Neurosciences Institute and of the Stanford University at large.

Closing Remarks delivered by William Newsome, Director of Stanford Neurosciences Institute at the Stanford Neurosciences Inaugural Symposium.

Dr. Thomas Südhof, Professor in the School of Medicine at Stanford University, discusses function of neurexins and their ligands, which are essential for synapse function and determine the properties and nature of synapses. Mutations in these molecules have been associated with autism, schizophrenia and intellectual disability, suggesting that the functions of these molecules are relevant for insight into these devastating disorders.

Professor Nita Farahany, Professor of Law & Philosophy at Duke Law School, presents several of the more salient issues that arise from the intersection of law and neuroscience. Recent scientific progress has dramatically advanced our understanding of the biological, neurological and environmental contributions to normal and deviant human behavior. Behavioral scientists have moved beyond purely descriptive scientific accounts to predictive ones by linking genetic and neurological variations to behavioral variations in the population. Dr. Farahany discusses the first comprehensive empirical study on the use of neuroscience in the U.S. criminal justice system.

Professor Carla Shatz, Professor of Biology and of Neurobiology and the Director of Bio-X at Stanford University, discusses research results that show that Major Histocompatability Class I and PirB genes, thought previously to function only in immunity, act at neuronal synapses to limit how much - or how quickly - synapse strength changes in response to new experience. Changes in their function could contribute to developmental disorders such as Schizophrenia, and even to the synapse loss in Alzheimer’s Disease.

Opening Remarks delivered by William Newsome, Director of the Stanford Neurosciences Institute, and Ann Arvin, Vice Provost and Dean of Research for Stanford University, at the Inaugural Symposium of the Stanford Neurosciences Institute.

Professor John Rogers, Professor of Materials Science and Engineering, University of Illinois, discusses how the successful integration of optoelectronic and microfluidic systems with the brain has the potential to accelerate basic scientific discoveries and their translation into clinically relevant technologies. Professor Rogers’ research includes fundamental and applied aspects of materials for unusual electronic and photonic devices, with an emphasis on bio-integrated and bio-inspired systems.

Dr. Bruce Rosen, Professor of Radiology at Harvard Medical School, discusses how functional imaging of the human brain is evolving, allowing neuroscientists to bridge the gap between systems-level human imaging and circuit-level mechanistic neural models, and enhancing our ability to explore and better understand human neuroscience and human disease.

Dr. Thomas Insel, Director of the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH), discusses how a deeper understanding of how the human brain functions will yield new approaches to diagnostics and therapeutics, bending the curve for millions affected by mental disorders.