Our Mission
The mission of The Institute for the Brain and Cognitive Sciences (IBACS) is to serve as both a beacon and incubator for research across the brain and cognitive sciences at UConn and beyond; promoting and supporting the interdisciplinary science of the mind and its realization in biological and artificial systems.
“Anyone could, if they were so inclined, be the sculptor of their own brain.”
― Santiago Ramón y Cajal
Upcoming Events
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4/22
Earth Café 2024
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4/23
MCB Seminar Series: Dr. Aoife Heaslip, Tenure Talk
MCB Seminar Series: Dr. Aoife Heaslip, Tenure Talk
Tuesday, April 23rd, 2024
03:30 PM
BPB 131
Dr. Aoife Heaslip, Assistant Professor, Department of Molecular and Cell Biology, University of Connecticut
Host: Carol Teschke
Intracellular cargo transport in Toxoplasma gondii
The human pathogen Toxoplasma gondii (T. gondii) causes life-threatening disease in immunocompromised individuals and when infection occurs in utero. Survival and disease pathogenesis are dependent on host cell invasion, intracellular replication and egress, which results in destruction of the infected cells. In order to complete this lytic cycle, Toxoplasma must traffic proteins to three distinct secretory organelles, the micronemes, rhoptries and dense granules. In this talk I will present our recent work characterizing how actin and an unconventional myosin motor, MyoF regulate protein trafficking and vesicle transport in Toxoplasma.
Bio: Aoife Heaslip received her bachelor’s degree from University College Dublin and PhD degree from the University of Vermont under the mentorship of Dr. Gary Ward. Aoife then moved to Indiana University and worked as a postdoctoral associate with Dr. Ke Hu. She then returned to Vermont to complete a second postdoc with Dr. David Warshaw, an expert in myosin biophysics. I joined the MCB department as an assistant professor in 2017.
Contact Information:
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4/24
MCB Dissertation Defense: Lorraine Burdick
MCB Dissertation Defense: Lorraine Burdick
Wednesday, April 24th, 2024
10:00 AM
BPB 131
Department of Molecular and Cell Biology
University of Connecticut
Announces the
Oral Dissertation Defense for the Doctoral Degree
Lorraine Burdick
B.S. University of Connecticut
Investigating the Developmental Fate of Fibro-Adipogenic Progenitors in Mouse Models of Fibrodysplasia Ossificans Progressiva
Wednesday, April 24, 2024
10:00 AM
BPB 131
Webex Link: https://uconn-cmr.webex.com/meet/lna09001
Major Advisor: David Goldhamer
Associate Advisor: Charles Giardina
Associate Advisor: Leighton Core
Examiner: Lawrence Silbart
Examiner: Caroline Dealy
Link to Current Draft of Dissertation
https://docs.google.com/document/d/11Cb4h7YolwT3UbVc4Um7_yzmNh9aMCT0zxS7b0y74Qc/edit?usp=sharing
Contact Information:
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4/24
The Reading Brain: Bilingual and Cross-Linguistic Perspectives on Child Literacy
The Reading Brain: Bilingual and Cross-Linguistic Perspectives on Child Literacy
Wednesday, April 24th, 2024
12:30 PM - 01:30 PM
Webex or Waterbury campus MPR 116/119
Abstract: This talk will explore how learning more than one language influences children’s neural architecture as they learn to read. By studying Spanish-English and Chinese-English bilingual children using fNIRS, my research aims to understand how bilingual experiences shape the neural architecture for reading. Our findings offer insights into theoretical perspectives on bilingualism, literacy development, and neurodevelopmental plasticity.
Registration: https://tinyurl.com/UCONN-WTBY-RESEARCH
**Note that you must register to obtain the Webex meeting details. -
4/24
Robert W. Makuch Distinguished Lecture in Biostatistics: Roderick J. Little, University of Michigan
Robert W. Makuch Distinguished Lecture in Biostatistics: Roderick J. Little, University of Michigan
Wednesday, April 24th, 2024
04:00 PM - 05:00 PM
Some Reflections on Rosenbaum and Rubin’s Propensity Score Paper
Presented by Roderick J. Little
Richard D. Remington Distinguished University Professor of Biostatistics
Department of Biostatistics, University of MichiganWednesday, April 24, 2024
4:00 PM-5:00 PM ET
AUST 163
Webex Meeting Link
Coffee will be served at 3:30 pm in the Noether Lounge (AUST 326)Rosenbaum and Rubin’s paper is highly cited because the basic idea is simple and insightful, and it has applications to important practical problems in treatment comparisons with observational data, and selection bias and nonresponse in surveys. I discuss several issues related to the method, including use of the propensity score for weighting or prediction, and two robust methods that use the propensity score as a covariate and can be more efficient that weighting when the weights are highly variable, namely Penalized Spline of Propensity Prediction (PSPP) and Penalized Spline of Propensity for Treatment Comparisons (PENCOMP). Approaches to addressing highly variable weights are discussed, including omitting variables in the propensity model that are unrelated to outcomes, and redefining the estimand.
Keywords: confounding by indication, nonresponse modeling, penalized spline of propensity, robust causal inference.
Speaker Bio:
Roderick J. Little is Richard D. Remington Distinguished University Professor of Biostatistics at the University of Michigan, where he also holds appointments in the Department of Statistics and the Institute for Social Research. He chaired the Biostatistics Department at Michigan for 11 years. He has over 250 publications, notably on methods for the analysis of data with missing values and model-based survey inference, and the application of statistics to diverse scientific areas, including medicine, demography, economics, psychiatry, aging and the environment. Little is an elected member of the International Statistical Institute, a Fellow of the American Statistical Association and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and a member of the National Academy of Medicine. In 2005, Little was awarded the American Statistical Association’s Wilks Medal for research contributions, and he gave the President’s Invited Address at the Joint Statistical Meetings. He was the COPSS Fisher Lecturer at the 2012 Joint Statistics Meetings.
Robert Makuch is a Professor in the Department of Biostatistics at the Yale School of Public Health and Director of the Regulatory Affairs Track. A graduate of the University of Connecticut (BA), University of Washington (MA – mathematics), and Yale University (MPhil, PhD), Professor Makuch worked at the National Cancer Institute (NCI) and the World Health Organization’s International Agency for Research on Cancer early in his career. He also worked for six months at the National Cancer Research Center in Tokyo, Japan.
He also was heavily involved in HIV research from the mid 80’s through the early-mid 90’s. He participated on the data monitoring committee for the original AZT vs. placebo randomized clinical trial in AIDS patients, and served on numerous committees for the NCI and the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases. He also worked closely with the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), developing and implementing more than 200 HIV studies. He also served as a Special Government Employee (SGE) to the FDA. He returned to Yale in 1986, and has worked extensively on methodologic issues in clinical trials and large population-based studies since. Another area of current interest involves detection of rare adverse drug events, especially in the post-marketing environment.
These areas of methodologic research evolved as a result of his continued interest (since the mid 1980s) in regulatory affairs science. In addition, Makuch developed a regulatory affairs track at YSPH for graduate and post-doctoral level students, and over the past 10 years has been the leader of more than 25 training programs for senior delegations of the Chinese Food and Drug Administration. His areas of medical application include cancer, HIV, arthritis, and cardiovascular disease.
In 2003, Makuch received the American Statistical Association Fellow Award for his numerous contributions to the field. In 2008, Makuch was received a Distinguished Alumni Award from the University of Connecticut. In 2012, Makuch was nominated to serve on the University of Connecticut Dean’s Advisory Board for the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences. He also has been a decades-long member of Phi Beta Kappa. He also developed a 5-year biostatistics training program in Japan, in collaboration with the Japanese government. His primary research interests continue to be methodologic issues in the design, conduct, analysis, and interpretation of clinical and large-population/epidemiologic studies. Design and sample size considerations for Phase IV studies is another active research area, in which a new class of hybrid designs has been proposed for scientific and regulatory purposes to detect rare adverse events.
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4/24
PNB Seminar Series: Dr. Mark Rossi
PNB Seminar Series: Dr. Mark Rossi
Wednesday, April 24th, 2024
04:00 PM - 05:00 PM
Torrey Life Sciences Building
On Wednesday, 4/24/24, Dr. Mark Rossi will be here at UConn for our seminar series from Rutgers Robert Wood Johnson Medical School. His talk will be titled “Lateral hypothalamic circuit control of feeding: Implications for obesity.”
Contact Information:
Dr. René N Rovozzo, PhD
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Educational Program Assistant
University of Connecticut
Physiology & Neurobiology
75 North Eagleville Road, U-3156
Storrs-Mansfield, CT 06269-3156
Phone: 860-486-3304
rene.rovozzo@uconn.edu