LIN Seminar: Dr. Angeles Salles & Dr. Erica Jung (UIC)

Please join us for a joint seminar with UIC faculty members Angeles Salles and Erica Jung on October 28, 2021 at 4pm.

Angeles Salles will present "Bats, Brains, and Behavior"

Abstract: Bats integrate acoustic information to track and capture insects in flight. At the same time, bats must contend with auditory stimuli emitted by neighboring conspecifics that produce their own echolocation and social communication sounds. Furthermore, bats need to distinguish these relevant sounds from background noise generated by echoes returning from vegetation (clutter). Bats thus operate in a ‘cocktail party’-like environment in which they must negotiate between multiple competing acoustic inputs. My work focuses on understanding the neural underpinnings that enable the bat to sort these competing stimuli to make rapid auditory-guided decisions in complex environments. Though much has been learned about how bats process acoustic information, most studies have focused on echolocation calls so there is still much to learn about how they process communicative sounds. Furthermore, vocal learning has only been studied in a handful of bat species. My future research program will combine neurophysiology and molecular tools in echolocating bats to investigate auditory processing of social sounds and vocal learning.

Erica Jung will present "Optical monitoring of neural activity in zebrafish larvae and optical zebrafish brain-computer interface"

Abstract: Zebrafish larvae are a well-studied animal model used in neuroscience research due to their unique properties, including an optically transparent brain and body, reduced neural circuitry and small size, and a rapidly developing and maturing central nervous system. In this talk, Dr. Jung will introduce her research using zebrafish larvae as an animal model to optically monitor neural activity and to develop brain-machine interface. For the optical monitoring of neural activity, a novel genetically encoded voltage sensor has been developed and utilized in zebrafish larvae that allows optical observation of neural activity at a single cell resolution. The monitored neural activity will be linked to computer and external devices to build all optical brain-machine interface. This seminar will conclude with future research directions of Jung’s lab at UIC.