Kavli Prize Symposia: Neuroscience

Date & Time: September 6, 9:30am - 2:00pm (CEST)
Location: Gamle Festsal, University of Oslo

Antonio R Damasio
University of Southern California, Los Angeles, USA
Public Awareness Lecture: "The Neuroscience of Emotion and Consciousness"
Antonio R Damasio is an internationally recognized leader in neuroscience. His research has helped to elucidate the neural basis for the emotions and has shown that emotions play a central role in social cognition and decision-making. His work has also had a major influence on current understanding of the neural systems, which underlie memory, language and consciousness. Damasio directs the USC Brain and Creativity Institute. (Additional information)

Richard Axel
Columbia University, New York, USA
"A Molecular Logic of Olfactory Perception"
Richard Axel is an American neuroscientist whose work on the olfactory system won him and Linda B. Buck, a former post-doctoral scientist in his research group, the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 2004. In their landmark paper published in 1991, Buck and Axel cloned olfactory receptors, showing that they belong to the family of G protein coupled receptors. This research opened the door to the genetic and molecular analysis of the mechanisms of olfaction. Axel is an Investigator, Howard Hughes Medical Institute, and Professor of Columbia University. He is also a member of the Kavli Institute for Brain Science at Columbia University.(Additional information)

Tobias Bonhoeffer
Max Planck Institute of Neurobiology, Martinsried, Germany
"How Experience Changes the Circuitry of the Brain"
Tobias Bonhoeffer is a director at the Max Planck Institute of Neurobiology in Martinsried, Germany, and heads the institute’s Department of Cellular and Systems Neurobiology. He is one of the world’s leading researchers on synaptic plasticity in the brain and has pioneered new optical methods of observing the structural changes in the living brain as it adapts to its environment. (Additional information)

Michael E Goldberg
Columbia University, New York, USA
"The Neurophysiology of Visual Attention"
Michael Goldberg is president of the Society for Neuroscience,the David Mahoney Professor of Brain and Behavior in the Departments of Neuroscience and Neurology at the Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons, and the director of the Mahoney-Keck Center for Brain and Behavior Research at Columbia University Medical Center. His research primarily focuses on the psychophysics and physiology of cognitive processes in the monkey. Goldberg is also a member of the Kavli Institute for Brain Science at Columbia University. (Additional information)

Poul Nissen
University of Aarhus, Denmark
"The Structure and Function of Ion Pumps in Cells and Changes in Disease"
Poul Nissen is professor of protein biochemistry at Aarhus University and director of the interdisciplinary Centre for Membrane Pumps in Cells and Disease (PUMPKIN) of the Danish National Research Foundation. His primary research areas include transmembrane transport and signalling, in particular P-type ATPase pumps and neurotransmitter transporters, as well as Sortilin-type neuroreceptors and eukaryotic ribosomes.(Additional information)

Giacomo Rizzolatti
University of Parma, Italy
"Mirror Neurons: Interpretations and Speculations"
Giacomo Rizzolatti is professor of Human Physiology at the University of Parma. He is a past winner of the Golgi Prize for Physiology and the George Miller Award of the Cognitive Neuroscience Society, and he has received an honorary Degree in Medicine from the University Claude Bernard of Lyon. He has served as director of the European Training Program in Brain and Behaviour Research sponsored by the European Science Foundation. He earned graduate degrees in Neurology in Padua, Italy, with post-graduate work at the University of Pisa Institute of Physiology under Prof. Giuseppe Moruzzi. (Additional information)

Huda Y. Zoghbi
Baylor College of Medicine, Houston, USA
"The Story of Rett Syndrome: Where Epigenetics Meets Neurobiology"
Huda Zoghbi is a professor of pediatrics, neurology, neuroscience, and molecular and human genetics at Baylor College of Medicine, and is an investigator with the Howard Hughes Medical Institute. Zoghbi's research employs tools of modern genetics to understand both the proper development of the brain and specific neurodegenerative conditions. She has published seminal work on the molecular basis of the late-onset neurodegenerative disorder spinocerebellar ataxia type 1 (SCA1). Her work in neurodevelopment has led to the discovery of the gene Math1, which governs the development of several components of the proprioceptive pathway as well as hair cells in the inner ear. Zoghbi's group also discovered that mutations in the methyl-CpG-binding-protein (MECP2) cause the neurodevelopmental disorder Rett syndrome, which is a leading cause of mental retardation in girls and women. (Additional information)