Monday, February 1

Assessing cortical plasticity in neuropsychiatric disorders

Alvaro Pascual-Leone, Harvard Medical School

CVS Boynton Colloquium: Kresge Rm., Meliora 269, 12:00-1:30 pm

There is growing evidence on the dynamic plastic nature of the human brain across the lifespan. Neurons are highly specialized structures, resistant to change, but engaged in circuits and distributed networks that do dynamically change over the lifespan. Changes in functional connectivity, for example by shifts in synaptic strength, can be followed by more stable structural changes. Therefore, the brain is continuously undergoing plastic remodeling.

Plasticity is not an occasional state of the nervous system, but the normal ongoing state of the nervous system throughout the life span. It is not possible to understand normal psychological function nor the manifestations or consequences of disease without invoking the concept of brain plasticity. Furthermore, the mechanisms of plasticity themselves may be aberrant and pathogentically contribute to the manifestation of disease.

The challenge is to understand the mechanisms and consequences of plasticity in order to modulate them, suppressing some and enhancing others, to promote adaptive brain changes and the most desirable outcome for a given individual.

Understanding the mechanisms and substrates for neural circuit retraining would be of great value for designing new and refining existing clinical strategies used to treat neurological, neurodevelopmental, addictive, psychiatric, developmental and aging disorders. Plasticity-based interventions and retraining to restore or improve function might have profound impacts on central nervous system (CNS) disorders as diverse as traumatic brain and spinal cord injury, stroke, Alzheimer's disease, Parkinson¹s disease and other degenerative disorders, addiction, neuropsychiatric disorders, such as schizophrenia or depression, and developmental disorders, such as autism.

Monday, February 15

Rachel Wong, University of Washington

CVS Boynton Colloquium: Kresge Rm., Meliora 269, 12:00-1:30 pm

Monday, March 1

Alfredo Kirkwood, Johns Hopkins University

CVS Boynton Colloquium: Kresge Rm., Meliora 269, 12:00-1:30 pm