Krembil Centre for Neuroinformatics Speaker Series
Our monthly #KCNISpeakerSeries is designed to highlight research topics, share knowledge and spark conversation among leading scientists and research institutions worldwide in the field of neuroinformatics, computational neuroscience and psychiatry.
The series features speakers from a wide range of backgrounds, expressing the diversity of the Krembil Centre’s scientific breadth. Each month we hear a new perspective on the current state of multi-scale neuroscience, from gene to circuits, from brain dynamics to cognitive modeling and populations.
Building a strong, and innovative research community includes encouraging diverse expertise, cross-knowledge sharing and collaborative innovation across all scientists. KCNI’s Speaker Series showcases the real contributions experiences by recognize scientists around the world. Through these forums, we can inspire each other, in order to better define, prevent and treat mental illnesses.
Presenter: Dr. Liisa Galea is the inaugural Treliving Family Chair in Women’s Mental Health at the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health and a Professor in Psychiatry at the University of Toronto. Dr. Galea is a world-renowned expert in neuroendocrine contributions to neuroplasticity and behaviour, with a focus on dementia and stress-related psychiatric disorders. Her research goal is to improve brain health by examining the influence of sex and sex hormones in health and disease. She has won numerous awards, is the Principal Editor of Frontiers in Neuroendocrinology, and the President of the Organization for the Study of Sex differences. Dr. Galea is also tireless advocate for women’s health research and for sex and gender-based analyses towards improved health for all people.
Topic: Why Sex and Sex Hormones Matter for Neuroscience of Mental Health
Presenter: Gillian Strudwick RN, PhD, FAMIA, FCAN is the Chief Clinical Informatics Officer and Scientist at the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health. She is also an Associate Professor at the Institute of Health Policy, Management and Evaluation at the University of Toronto. Dr. Strudwick is a board member of AMS Healthcare and the Liberty Village Family Health Team.
Topic: Utilization of digital innovation in mental health research: Case Studies in Mental health Research
Presenter: Dr. Meltzer is a Senior Scientist at the Rotman Research Institute of Baycrest Hospital, Associate Professor in the departments of Psychology and Speech-Language Pathology at the University of Toronto, and Canada Research Chair in Interventional Cognitive Neuroscience. He did his Ph.D. at Yale University and a postdoctoral fellowship at the NIH in Bethesda, Maryland.Dr. Meltzer’s laboratory investigates novel technological approaches for improving treatment of post-stroke impairments, with an emphasis on practicality and scalability to at-home use.
Topic: The role of interhemispheric interactions in neurological disorders, and what to do about it.
Presenter: Dr. Gooday is a social, psychiatric, and digital epidemiologist and is currently Lead Scientist at 4YouandMe and an Honorary Research Fellow in the Department of Psychiatry at the University of Oxford. Her work centres on stress and other bio-psychosocial risk factors as prevention and early intervention targets of mental and physical health outcomes during life transitional periods including the perinatal window, adolescence, and emerging adulthood.
Topic: Participant-centered digital health research using wearables and smartphones - Empowering the patient to co-navigate their mental health experiences and exploration of potential new states of health
Presenter: Dr. Gerold Schmitt-Ulms holds a PhD from the Max-Planck Unit for Structural Molecular Biology, Hamburg, investigating molecular interactions in Alzheimer’s disease under supervision of Dr. Eckhard Mandelkow. Since 2003, he has been a graduate faculty member within the Department of Laboratory Medicine & Pathobiology, University of Toronto, working at the Tanz Centre for Research in Neurodegenerative Diseases. His research focuses on Alzheimer’s disease, prion disorders and related dementias. More specifically, his group studies how disease perturbs the physiological function and molecular interactions of proteins known to cause inherited forms of these dementias. The overarching objective of this work is to derive mechanism-based early diagnostics and disease interventions.
Topic: From protein function to therapy: targeting sodium-potassium pumps for the treatment of prion diseases and Alzheimer’s disease
Date: Thursday, January 26, 2023
November 2022 talk
Presenter: Dr. Kelly Smart is an Independent Scientist at the CAMH Brain Health Imaging Centre and an Assistant Professor in the Department of Psychiatry, University of Toronto. At CAMH, Dr. Smart's research uses molecular imaging of synaptic markers and neurotransmission together with MRI, behaviour, and drug probes to understand the mechanisms of disease-, drug- and treatment-related changes in brain function.
Topic: Molecular imaging of synaptic processes in human brain function
Date: Thursday, November 24, 2022 at 11am to 12pm EST
Presenter: Dr. Bengi Baran received her PhD in Psychology from the University of Massachusetts Amherst and completed post-doctoral research training in Sleep, Circadian and Respiratory Neurobiology at Harvard Medical School.
Topic: Understanding the role of sleep oscillations in symptoms and cognitive deficits in psychotic disorders.
Date: Thursday, October 27, 2022 at 11 to 12pm EST
Presenter: Dr. Ryan Smith is a Principal Investigator at the Laureate Institute for Brain Research and a Research Associate Professor at the University of Tulsa.
Topic: Simulating the Computational Mechanisms of Emotional Awareness and their Breakdown in Affective Disorders.
Presenter: Dr. Angela Laird is a Professor of Physics and Director of the Center for Imaging Science at Florida International University in Miami, Florida
Topic: Large, open datasets for human connectomics research: Considerations for reproducible and responsible data use
Presenter: Dr. Xiaosi Gu currently Associate Professor in Psychiatry and Neuroscience, and Director of Center for Computational Psychiatry at Mount Sinai. Topic: The social brain: from models to mental health
Presenter: Dr. Rebecca Hodge joined the Allen Institute as a Scientist II in the Human Cell Types program in March of 2014. She is currently an Assistant Investigator and co-lead of genomics projects at the Institute. Topic: Mapping the human cerebral cortex using single nucleus RNA-sequencing Watch the video
August 2021 talk
Presenter: Associate Professor Dr. Marta Garrido leads the Cognitive Neuroscience and Computational Psychiatry Laboratory at the Melbourne School of Psychological Sciences, at The University of Melbourne, and is Chief Investigator in the Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence for Integrative Brain Function. Topic: From sensory prediction errors to computational psychiatry Watch the video
May 2021 talk
Presenter: Blake Richards is an Assistant Professor in the School of Computer Science and the Montreal Neurological Institute at McGill University and a Core Faculty Member at Mila. Topic: A single self-supervised loss function can explain specialized pathways in mouse visual cortex Watch the video
April 2021 talk
Presenter: Dr. Joel Zylberberg is Associate Fellow of Learning in Machines and Brains at CIFAR, Faculty Affiliate at the Vector Institute for AI, and Canada Research Chair in Computational Neuroscience at York University. Topic: Learning from unexpected events in the neocortical microcircuit Watch the video
March 2021 talk
Presenter: Dr. Petra Ritter heads the Brain Simulation Section at the Dept. of Neurology, Charité and Berlin Institute of Health. Topic: The Virtual Brain Cloud Watch the video
February 2021 talk
Presenter: Dr. Joana Cabral is a Biomedical Engineer with a PhD in Computational Neuroscience. She is currently a researcher at the Life and Health Sciences Research Institute in Portugal. Topic: Dynamic Behaviour of Brain Network States Watch the video
January 2021 talk
Presenter: Dr. Lori Chibnik is a biostatistician and Assistant Professor with an appointment in the Department of Neurology at Massachusetts General Hospital and the Department of Epidemiology at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. Topic: Tackling disparities in genetics research: Building the research and researchers together Watch the video
2020
December 2020 talk
Presenter: Dr. Frances Skinner, Senior Scientist, Krembil Brain Institute Division of Clinical and Computational Neuroscience, Krembil Research Institute, University Health Network. Professor, University of Toronto. Topic: A modeling story of two brain cells Watch the video
November 2020 talk
Presenter: Dr. Stephanie R. Jones, Associate Professor, Department of Neuroscience, Brown University. Topic: Biophysically Principled Neural Modeling of EEG to Guide Interpretation and Design of Non-Invasive Brain Stimulation. Watch the video
October 2020 talk
Presenter: Dr. Philip De Jager, Weil-Granat Professor of Neurology, Taub Institute for Research on Alzheimer's Disease and the Aging Brain and the Columbia Precision Medicine Initiative, Columbia University Irving Medical Center Topic: Cell population structure of the aging brain: Towards a high-resolution perspective of human neurodegeneration Watch the video
September 2020 talk
Presenter: Dr. John Murray, Assistant Professor, Department of Psychiatry, Yale University Topic: Large-scale gradients across human cortex: computational modeling, neuroimaging and transcriptomics Watch the video
August 2020 talk
Presenter: Dr. Justin Baker, Scientific Director, McLean Institute for Technology in Psychiatry, and Director, Laboratory for Functional Neuroimaging and Bioinformatics, McLean Hospital, and Assistant Professor of Psychiatry, Harvard Medical School Topic: Sensing Psychosis: Toward Computational Phenotypes in Severe Mental Illness Watch the video
July 2020 talk
Presenter: Dr. Gaute Einevoll, Professor of Physics at the Norwegian University of Life Sciences and the University of Oslo Topic: Towards multipurpose biophysics-based mathematical models of cortical circuits Watch the video
Inaugural talk - June 2020
Presenter: Dr. Sean Hill, Director, Krembil Centre for Neuroinformatics Topic: A multiscale perspective on brain health: from genes to behaviour and populations Watch the video
