Volen National Center for Complex Systems
Scientific Retreat 2011

On April 25, 2011, the Volen National Center for Complex Systems held its annual scientific retreat. This year the event took place at the Warren Conference Center, located in rural Ashland, Mass. This location served as an ideal venue for the exchange of scientific ideas between members of the Brandeis neuroscience community. Of special note, it allowed students and faculty alike to take a break from their daily activities, broaden their perspectives and enjoy the company of their colleagues. It is through these retreats that new collaborations among Volen Center faculty members often arise.

During the course of the retreat, four Volen Center researchers (professors Stephen Van Hooser, Avital Rodal, Pengyu Hong and David DeRosier) shared their work by giving talks to the full Brandeis neuroscience community in attendance. As will become evident in the following summaries, these presentations described cutting-edge imaging techniques and what they tell us about form and function. We were delighted to have as our keynote speaker Dr. Aniruddha Das from Columbia University, who discussed his research on regional blood flow in the brain (brain hemodynamics) and what this tells us about mental function. Finally, and no less important, the retreat served as a forum for graduate students to share their work in a poster session where they received valuable feedback from peers and faculty.

Speakers:

Arthur Wingfield, D.Phil.
Nancy Lurie Marks Professor of Neuroscience and
Director, Volen National Center for Complex Systems
Brandeis University

Aniruddha Das, Ph.D.
Associate Professor of Neuroscience and Psychiatry
Columbia University
"Brain Hemodynamics: So Much More Than Just a Measure of Local Neural Firing"

Stephen Van Hooser, Ph.D.,
Assistant Professor of Biology, Brandeis University
"Choosing Which Way to Go: the Development of Direction Selectivity in Visual Cortex"

Avital Rodal, Ph.D.,
Assistant Professor of Biology, Brandeis University
"Synaptic Growth: Signals on the Move"

Pengyu Hong, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor of Computer Science, Brandeis University
"High-Content Neuronal Screening"

David DeRosier, Ph.D.
Professor of Biology, Emeritus,
Abraham S. and Gertrude Burg Chair of Life Sciences, Brandeis University
"Cryo-PALMing the Synapse"

Student Poster Session