[BIC-announce] FW: Killam Lecture - June 8th, 2010 - Neural circuits for corollry discharge

[Jennifer Chew, Ms.]

PLEASE DISCARD IF THIS IS A DUPLICATE.  THANK YOU.  JENNIFER     
 

Jennifer Chew

McConnell Brain Imaging Centre

MNI - WB317

3801 University Street

Montreal, Qc  H3A 2B4

Telephone:  514-398-8554

Fax:  514-398-2975

 

 

________________________________

From: MNISTAFF - Montreal Neurological Institute Staff [mailto:MNISTAFF at LISTS.MCGILL.CA] On Behalf Of Enza Ferracane, Ms.
Sent: Monday, June 07, 2010 12:09 PM
To: MNISTAFF at LISTS.MCGILL.CA
Subject: Killam Lecture - June 8th, 2010



**KILLAM LECTURE**



Marc Sommer from the University of Pittsburg will be tomorrow's Killam speaker (June 8). His talk is entitled:  Neuronal circuits for corollary discharge.

 

Marc is a highly  innovative and technically sophisticated electrophysiologist working in the alert behaving primate. Using single cell recordings, deactivation and electrical stimulation, in monkeys that scan the visual world, he has identified neurons in the brainstem that send ascending signals to cortex via the thalamus and that carry corollary discharges which inform cortex on the characteristics of an eye saccade that has just been generated. This permits the visual system  to update its representation of space (remapping) and  is critical for both perception and interactions with the surrounds. He routinely records simultaneously, in the alert monkey, from three identified neurons in the frontal lobes, thalamus and superior colliculus, respectively, that participate in controlling and monitoring saccadic eye movement. He identifies where each recorded neurons project to by electrically stimulating its target structure and assuring that the neuron is activated antidromically.  Such techniques are unique in that they permit the construction of circuit diagram where the signals carried in each line are known.