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Zohre azimi is a PhD student in the institute of neuroinformatik at Ruhr University Bochum. Azimi’s research focuses on the study of serotonergic system in sensory cortical area using optogenetic tools. She earned her master’s degree in biomedical engineering from AUT. Her poster will be presented at this time (October 20, 2019, 8:00 AM - 10:00 AM; Session Number: 141, Poster board Number: K29) and she will be available then. Feel free to contact her via SKNB Neuronline forum during the conference, and any time via email: zohre.azimi@ini.rub.de

Abimbola, Idowu (PhD) Abimbola Idowu is a lecturer and research scientist in neurophysiology at Lagos State University College of Medicine, Lagos, Nigeria. He previously was a visiting scientist at Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, United States and at the Weizmann Institute of Science in Rehovot, Israel. Idowu’s main research interests lie in Age-dependent synaptic plasticity, learning and memory. He received his undergraduate degree in zoology from the University of Lagos, Nigeria and his PhD in physiology from the Lagos State University, Lagos Nigeria. He completed his postdoctoral training at Johns Hopkins University. I will be available to answer questions from 6:30pm - 8:30pm on Saturday October 19, 2019 and from 8:00am - 9:00am on Monday October 21, 2019. You can reach me through email: abimbola.idowu@lasu.edu.ng OR through https://zoom.us/j/8584771183

Mahmoud Abdellahi is a PhD student in the Cardiff University Brain Research Imaging Centre (CUBRIC) at Cardiff University, United Kingdom. Mahmoud's main research interest lies in memory reactivation during sleep with Targeted Memory Reactivation (TMR), with a particular focus on the use of machine learning for the sake of classifying memory reactivation in humans. He earned his Master's degree from the faculty of computers and artificial intelligence, Cairo University. Feel free to contact him via SKNB Neuronline forum during the conference, and any time via email: abdellahime@cardiff.ac.uk He will present his work via a pre-recorded talk at: Session 193, 13. Detecting cued memory replay during slow-wave sleep and rapid eye movement sleep using EEG classifiers Sunday, October 20, 2019, 4:15 PM Title: Detecting cued memory replay during slow-wave sleep and rapid eye movement sleep using EEG classifiers Session Type: Nanosymposium Session Title: Functional Role of Sleep Session Number: 193 Session Time: Sunday, October 20, 2019, 4:15 PM Place: Room S404 Presentation Number: 193.13

Dimple Jhonsa is a PhD student at the department of pharmacology at Bombay College of Pharmacy. She completed her master in pharmacy in pharmacology from Bombay College of Pharmacy. Her research area focuses on ways to model Parkinson’s disease using Drosophila melanogaster as a model organism.

Sepiedeh Keshavarzi, MD, PhD Sepiedeh Keshavarzi is a postdoctoral research fellow in the Sainsbury Wellcome Centre at University College London. Keshavarzi's main research interest lies in cortical multi-sensory processing for perception of self-motion and spatial navigation, with a particular focus on vestibular-visual integration in the retrosplenial cortex. She earned her Medical Doctorate from Tehran University of Medical Sciences and her PhD in neuroscience from the University of Queensland. Attendees can contact her via email: s.keshavarzi@ucl.ac.uk, twitter: @SepiKeshavarzi, and SKNB Neuronline forum throughout the conference or after. She will present her work via a pre-recorded talk at the minisymposium session 712- Cell-Type Specificity, Strength, and Dynamics of Long-Range Synaptic Input. October 23, 2019, 1:55 PM - 2:15 PM, Room S406A

Mohammad Abdolrahmani is a research scientist in the lab for neural circuits and behavior at RIKEN Center for Brain Science. He previously was a post-doc at Osaka University. Mohammad’s main research interests lie in visual perception, decision making and visually-guided behaviors. He received his undergraduate degree in anatomical sciences from Iran University and his PhD in cognitive neuroscience from Osaka University. SfN Abstract: My poster will be presented at this time (October 23, 2019, 3:00 PM - 4:00 PM) and I will be available then. Perception is an active process involving continuous interactions with the environment. During such interactions neural signals called corollary discharges (CDs) propagate across multiple brain regions informing the animal whether the incoming sensory information originates from animal’s own actions or from the environment. Under ethologically natural conditions, such CDs co-occur in close temporal proximity and interact with each other. However, how the interactions between concurrent CDs affect the large-scale network dynamics, and in turn help shape sensory perception is currently unknown. We focused on the effect of saccadic and body-movement CDs on a network of visual cortical areas in adult mice (n=15). CDs alone had large amplitudes, 3-4 times larger than visual responses, and could be dynamically described as standing waves (singular-value decomposition; explained variance 88±3%). They spread broadly, with peak activations in the medial and anterior parts of the dorsal visual stream. Inhibition (I) mirrored the wave-like dynamics of excitation (E), suggesting these networks remained E/I balanced. A generalized linear model (explained variance 36.8±3.6%) showed that CD waves superimposed sub-linearly and asymmetrically: the suppression was 1.5±0.2 times larger if a saccade followed a body movement by 0.59+-0.05 ms than in the reverse order. These rules depended on the animal’s cognitive state: when the animal was most engaged in a visual discrimination task (measured using pupil area), cortical states had large variability accompanied by an increase in S/N (max amplitude after the stimulus over pre-stimulus variability, p = 0.001) improving the reliability in sensory processing. High-variability states were associated with a smaller non-linearity as well (p = 0.002). These results suggest that in high variability states CDs and sensory signals are independently encoded, permitting an efficient read-out by downstream networks for improved visual perception. In summary, our results highlight a novel cognitive-dependent arithmetic for the interaction of non-visual signals that dominate the activity of occipital cortical networks during goal-oriented behaviors. These findings provide an experimental and theoretical foundation for the study of active visual perception in ethological conditions.

Shahrzad Ghazisaeidi, MSc Shahrzad Ghazisaeidi is a PhD candidate at the University of Toronto. Ghazisaeidi’s main research interests lie in the role of epigenetics and sex difference in chronic pain signalling. She received her undergraduate degree in biology from the University of Tehran and her MSc in cellular molecular biology from Royan institute.

Azam Asgarihafshejani is a post-doctoral fellow at faculty of medicine, department of neurosciences, University de Montreal, QC, Canada. She previously was a post-doctoral fellow at biology department, University of Victoria, BC, Canada. Asgarihafshejani’s main research interests lie in Synaptic plasticity and Synaptic transmission. She received her undergraduate degree in Biology from Isfahan University, Isfahan. Iran, her master degree in Animal Physiology from Isfahan University and her PhD in Physiology from Tarbiat Modares University, Tehran, Iran. She completed her first postdoctoral training at University of Victoria, BC, Canada. Date and Time that I will be available to answer questions: Tuesday Oct 22, 2019 1:00 PM - 5:00 PM In my project, We develop optogenetic protocols to selectively activate synaptic inputs from CA1 pyramidal cells onto somatostatin interneurons (SOM-INs) using ChR2, and induce long-term potentiation of EPSPs recorded by patch clamp electrodes in slices. We developed the optogenetic stimulation methods using the Polygon Pattern Illumination system. We characterized the optogenetically induced LTP in SOM-INs and showed it was dependent on mGluR1a and mTORC1 signaling. Moreover, We used field potential recordings in hippocampal slices to demonstrate that optogenetically-induced SOM-IN LTP regulates the two output targets of SOMINs: the Schaffer collateral and temporo-ammonic pathways onto CA1 pyramidal cells. Thus, We found that optogenetic activation of CA1 pyramidal inputs is sufficient to induce LTP of SOM-IN afferent synapses, and that long-term plasticity of these inputs, in turn, regulates metaplasticity of CA1 pyramidal cell Schaffer collateral and temporo-ammonic pathways.

Majid Khalili Ardali, MA Majid Khalili Ardali is a PhD candidate at institute for medical psychology and behavioral neurobiology. He previously was a master student at institute for cognitive science studies. Khalili’s main research interests lie in disorders of consciousness. He received his undergraduate degree in computer science from IAUCT. He is finishing his PhD working on patients with completely locked-in syndrome at institute for medical psychology and behavioral neurobiology at University of Tübingen. Contact: majid.khalili@medizin.uni-tuebingen.de