Annual retreat of the Zlotowski Center for Neuroscience
Wednesday-Thursday, February 19-20th, 2014
Sde-Boker
Preliminary Program
Wednesday, February 19
08:00 – Bus leaves BGU campus for the Sde Boker campus
09:00-09:30: Arrival and Coffee
09:30-09:35: Opening remarks
Session 1: Novel Approaches in Neuroscience Research
Chairperson – Tammy Raviv
09:35-10:15
Plenary: Itamar Kahn (Technion): combining modalities
10:15-10:45
Ofer Yifrach: No model in mind: A model- free approach for studying ion
channel gating
10:45-11:15 Danniel Gitler: Interrogating cells with light; contemporary live cell
imaging
11:15-11:45 Tammy Raviv: Methods in image processing
11:45-14:00 – Light Lunch & Poster Session
Session 2: Translational Neuroscience
Chairperson – Boomy Zangen
14:00 – 14:40 Plenary Lecture: Prof. Christoph Bernard, Neuroscience Institute
(Marseille)
Epilepsy as a Plasticity Machine
14:40-15:10
Harker Rhodes: Genetic Polymorphisms Affecting Cognitive Performance
After Mild Traumatic Brain Injury.
15:10-15:40 Michal Hirshfenkel: The ZnR acts to balance between excitation and
inhibition
15:40-16:10 Oren Shriki: Probing the balance of excitation and inhibition using
neuronal avalanches: applications to neurological and psychiatric
phenomena
16:10-16:40 – Coffee break
16:40-17:10 Ilan Dinstein: Noisy brains: from cognitive function to autism and ADHD
17:10- 17:30 Marin Jukic (Supervisor :Claude Brodsky) Overexpression of OTX2 leads
to increased fluctuations in manic and depressive like behavior in mice
17:30-17:50 Itay Hadas (Supervisor : Abraham Zangen) Attentional overload during
development: Evaluation of long-lasting neuroplastic and behavioral
outcomes
18:00 – 19:00 Panel Discussion
Teaching Neuroscience: Do we need special undergraduate and graduate programs
for Brain ?
Moderator: Avishai Henik
19:00 – 20:00
Zlotowski Center Members Meeting
Agenda: Annual and financial report (Alon Friedman)
BGU School for Brain Sciences (Avishai henik)
Elections for Chair
20:00-21:30
21:30
Dinner
Fun in the local pub…
Thursday, February 20th
07:00-08:00 – Breakfast
Session 3: Sensory systems – From periphery to brain networks
Chairperson – Maoz Shamir
08:30-09:00
09:00-09:30
09:30-10:00
10:00-10:20
10:20-10:40
Ronen Segev (TBD): Retinal adaptation and invariance to changes in
higher-order stimulus statistics
Tzi Ganel: On the psychophysics of visually-guided action
Lior Shmuelof: The neural correlates of motor acuity.
Praveen Kuruppath (Supervisor: Rony Azouz) Microvibrissae based
texture coding
Firas Mawase (Supervisor: Amir Karniel) Adaptation, Learning and
Consolidation of the Memory in Cerebral Palsy
10:40-11:00 – Coffee break
11:00-14:00 – Desert trip & Light lunch
14:30 – Bus leaves Sde Boker for BGU campus
Special Course on Genetic Polymorphisms Affecting Human Cognition
Course Number: 197-2-0004
Feb 02 (14:30 - 16:00; Sde-Boker)
14:30 - 16:00 Two 45 minute blocks (SERT; Mathematical definition of heritability and
G x E interactions)
16:00 - 16:30 Break
16:30 - 18:00 Two 45 minute blocks (Hermona Soreq; Cholinergic neuroanatomy;
AChE)
18:00 - 19:00 Dinner
19:00 - 20:30 Two 45 minute blocks (Dopamine receptors and relevant neuroanatomy)
20:30 - 21:00 break
21:00 - 22:00 Lab (Distribution of datasets; Simple statistical measures of association and
linear regression analysis)
22:00 – PUB OPENS
Feb 02 (9:00 - 13:00; Sde-Boker)
09:00 - 10:30 Two 45 minute blocks (Idan Menashe; Multiple testing and reproducibility
of genetic association studies)
10:30 - 11:30 Lab (Haplotype analysis [use of HAPLOVIEW]; Genome-wide
significance)
11:30 - 13:30 Two 45 minute blocks (Nicotinic and Muscarinic receptors)
Feb 23 (9:00 - 16:00; Ben-Gurion University, Marcus Campus)
09:00 - 10:30 Two 45 minute blocks (Avishai Henik; DBH)
10:30 - 11:00 Break
11:00 - 12:30 Two 45 minute blocks (COMT and DAT; G x G interactions and problems
created by the non-linearity of those interactions)
12:30 - 13:30 Lunch
13:30 - 15:00 Two 45 minute blocks (BDNF; The haplotype structure of naturally
occurring populations; genetic evidence for positive selective pressure during
recent human evolution)
15:00 - 16:00 Lab (Population structure and Simpson’s paradox, clades and clines [use of
STRUCTURE and PCA])
Feb 24 (9:00 - 13:00; Ben-Gurion University, Marcus Campus)
09:00 - 10:30 Two 45 minute blocks (APOE; MAPT; SNCA)
10:30 - 11:30 Lab (Odds ratio and logistic analysis; Cryptic relatedness and degree of
inbreeding)
11:30 - 13:30 Two 45 minute blocks (Nicotinic and Muscarinic receptors)