Uncovering the Neural Circuit Mechanisms of Spontaneity

Thursday, Nov 14, 2024 at 4:00 PM to 5:00 PM EST

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Thursday, Nov 14, 2024 at 4:00 PM to 5:00 PM EST

Uncovering the Neural Circuit Mechanisms of Spontaneity
Presented by Allison Hamilos, Fellow, Whitehead Institute

In this webinar, Whitehead Fellow Allison Hamilos will discuss how her lab is using clues from human disease to understand how our brains enable spontaneous behavior. She will demonstrate how the moment-by-moment signaling of dopamine neurons influences both our perception of time and our ability to self-generate movements. Additionally, she will explain how these new insights can help us better understand the many mysterious symptoms that arise in neurodegenerative conditions, such as Parkinson’s disease.

 

 Live webinar with Q&A. Free and open to all.

 

Moderator
David Page
Member, Whitehead Institute
Professor of Biology, MIT
Investigator, Howard Hughes Medical Institute

 

Cancellation policy

If your plans change, please cancel by 3:30 pm on November 14.

Whitehead Institute

www.wi.mit.edu

Whitehead Institute is a world-renowned non-profit research institution dedicated to improving human health through basic biomedical research.

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Learn more aboutAllison Hamilos Allison Hamilos
Allison Hamilos
Fellow
Whitehead Institute

Allison is a systems neuroscientist and Whitehead Fellow at the Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research. Her lab asks the question: How do we choose when we can’t know the right answer or the right answer might not even exist? The philosopher al-Ghazali reasoned free will lies in our ability to act under uncertainty, in situations where we can only pick “randomly” at best. Intriguingly, such (effectively) stochastic behavior may be the key to intelligence. Machine learning algorithms depend on stochasticity, and probabilistic cognitive models explain human reasoning in situations where artificial intelligence struggles. What neural mechanisms enable us to behave so spontaneously? Allison's lab aims to answer these questions by dissecting the role of neural circuits disrupted in neurological and psychiatric disease. Drawing on clinical insight and intuition, the lab trains mice to do complex behaviors, does neurosurgeries to record and manipulate neural circuits with optogenetics, and uses computational modeling to understand how these circuits give rise to spontaneous behavior. Allison earned MD and PhD degrees from Harvard Medical School as a member of the HST program. She completed her PhD dissertation with John Assad studying nigrostriatal dopamine circuits in behaving mice. She also completed an HHMI Med Fellowship with Jeff Karp designing surgical devices for transplanting stem cell technologies for the treatment of Type I Diabetes. She holds dual bachelor’s degrees from MIT in chemistry and biology, where she did undergraduate research with Cathy Drennan in X-ray crystallography and Monty Krieger in cholesterol metabolism.

https://hamilos.wi.mit.edu/

About Allison Hamilos

Fellow
Whitehead Institute
Learn more aboutDavid Page (Moderator) David Page (Moderator)
David Page (Moderator)
Member
Whitehead Institute

Page earned his undergraduate degree in chemistry at Swarthmore College in 1978. He trained in the laboratory of David Botstein at MIT, while earning an M.D. magna cum laude from Harvard Medical School and the Harvard-MIT Health Sciences and Technology Program. He is currently a Professor of Biology at MIT, and an Investigator at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute. In 1992, he founded the Whitehead Task Force on Genetics and Public Policy. Page serves on the Selection Committees of the March of Dimes Prize in Developmental Biology and the Taubman Prize in Translational Medical Science. He serves as Chair of the Visiting Committee of Harvard Medical School/Harvard School of Dental Medicine and on the Board of Directors of PepsiCo. Page served as Director of the Whitehead Institute from 2004 to 2020.

https://wi.mit.edu/people/member/page

About David Page (Moderator)

Member
Whitehead Institute

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