VISE Fall Seminar August 27 – Christos Constantinidis, PhD
VISE Fall Seminar
to be led by
Christos Constantinidis, PhD
Professor, Department of Neurobiology and Anatomy
Wake Forest School of Medicine
Date: Thursday, August 27, 2020
Time: 12:15 pm, Room admittance, 12:25 p.m. start
(Zoom details will go out the morning of the 27th)
Title:
“Uncovering the Neural Circuit Basis of Cognitive Maturation in Adolescence”
Abstract: The prefrontal cortex, the brain area controlling higher cognitive functions, matures relatively late in life, after adolescence. To understand the basis of neuronal changes that mediate cognitive maturation we have relied on imaging, neurophysiological, and computational approaches in a non-human primate model. We found that working memory and response inhibition improved markedly between the time of puberty and adulthood, and the aggregation of cognitive abilities was associated with increased activity of prefrontal neurons. Knowledge drawn from these experiments about the plasticity of prefrontal circuits that underlies cognitive improvement was used to design deep brain stimulation interventions that can improve cognitive function in pathological conditions, later in life.
Short Bio: Dr. Constantinidis received his PhD from the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine and completed postdoctoral training at the Yale School of Medicine. He is currently a Professor at the Wake Forest School of Medicine in North Carolina. His research uses intracranial recordings to understand the neural basis of cognitive functions using non-human primate models. Most recently he has developed deep brain stimulation methods to enhance cognition. He is the Principal Investigator of four R01 grants. He is going to talk to us about his research in cognitive maturation and how principles of neural plasticity can be used to design interventions with translational applications.
The seminar is co-sponsored by VU Neuroscience and VU Biomedical Engineering.