“Functional flexibility:  Brain circuits in action”

Speaker: Jess Cardin, PhD
Associate Professor, Department of Neuroscience, Yale School of Medicine 

Abstract: The physical components of brain circuits-the synapses and neurons-remain largely constant from moment to moment, and yet the operation of those circuits adapts to environmental inputs and behavioral demands almost instantaneously.  This rapid flexibility of neural network function allows information processing to be optimized in real time according to context and cognitive load.  Using mouse models to examine cortical circuits in the intact brain, we can identify spatial and temporal patterns of neural recruitment underlying these rapid adaptive changes in operation.  Both local interactions among nearby network elements, such as inhibitory and excitatory neurons, and large-scale interactions among widely spaced brain areas are affected by behavioral states, such as wakefulness, arousal, and attention, and these changes regulate sensory perception and cognition.

Bio: Jess Cardin is Associate Professor in the Department of Neuroscience at the Yale School of Medicine. She is currently a member of the Kavli Institute for Neuroscience at Yale. Professor Cardin is interested in how neurons in the brain communicate with each other, and how that communication leads to perception and behavior. Her lab studies how the brain represents and interprets what the eyes see, and how changes in the pattern of brain activity can change what is perceived. She earned her B.A. from Cornell, her Ph.D. from Penn, and completed her postdoctoral work at both Penn and MIT. 

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