Neural Circuits and Plasticity in Health and Disease
The 12th Canadian School of Neuroscience (April 29th to May 16st, 2018) on Neural Circuits and Plasticity in Health and Disease took place in Montreal and Vancouver. This North American/Canadian School of Neuroscience supports the idea that developed countries should become the base for international neuroscience education. In Canada, students are taught about latest advances in neuroscience, attend sessions by prominent neuroscientists, and visit various state-of-the art laboratories. A unique feature of the School is its close link to the annual meeting of the Canadian Association for Neuroscience, a meeting that brings together over 1000 researchers, mostly from across Canada and the United States.
This school is made possible by support from IBRO and from various multi-institutional organizations, including: the Canadian Association of Neuroscience; Department of Neurology, McGill University; Montreal Neurological Institute; Canadian Institute for Neuroscience, Mental Health and Addiction.
The Students
The School’s organizing committee, consisting of D. Ragsdale, M. Vollarth, A. Padjen, A. Aguayo, and E. Cooper, in consultation with members of the IBRO Regional Committees for Africa (ARC) and Latin America (LARC), selected 12 students from over 155 applicants. The students included graduate students, postdoctoral trainees, and Faculty Lecturers who reside in Morocco, Nigeria, Tanzania, South Africa, Mexico, Brazil, Argentina, and Chile. The selection committees gave priority to candidates: a) who demonstrated an interest in research on cellular and molecular mechanisms of neurological disease; and b) who have the potential to become promising, independent scientists.
All 12 students were outstanding; their hard work during the long 10-12 hour days and their active participation made the entire educational program an extremely pleasurable and rewarding experience for students and faculty alike.
The School
This year’s School consisted of three components, one in Montreal, and second in Montreal and Vancouver, and a third in Vancouver.
Part 1 Seminars, labs demonstrations (Montreal)
The first 8 days were spent at McGill University. The students attended interactive seminars and hands-on laboratory sessions on a wide range of basic neuroscience topics, including mouse genetics and new technologies for gene targeting, model organisms to investigate genetic diseases and behavior, including C. elegans, and drosophila, electrophysiological principles, computational neuroscience, neuron-glia interactions, cellular imaging methods. The Faculty included: A. Peterson, A. McKinney, D. Van Meyal, A. Fournier, E. Ruthazer, J. F. Cloutier, T. Kennedy, C. Pack, R. Sharif, D. Guitton, R. Araya, C. Borque, B. Chen, D, Stellewagon, C. Flores, S, Miranda-Rottmann, T. Ohyama, C. LePage, E. Larson, L.Stone, J. Sakata, and A. Krishnaswamy.
The specific topics discussed by the Faculty included: 1) Neurodegeneration; 2) The effects of activity in remodeling retinal ganglion cell axons in the developing visual system; 3) Specificity of synapse formation in the development of directional-sensitive retinal ganglion cells; 4) Neural basis for the spatial suppression of visual motion perception; 5) Neural map formation and sensory coding in the olfactory system; 6) Axon guidance and target innervation; 7) Extrinsic and intrinsic signals that regulate axon regeneration; 8) Neuronal diversification of astrocytes in the adult brain through sonic hedgehog signaling); 9) Astrocyte growth and notch signaling in drosophila; 10) Dendritic spines and synaptic plasticity; 11) Using of model organisms to investigate neuronal mechanisms of behavior; 12) Computation models of synaptic integration on dendrites; 13) Crispr/Cas9 and gene editing techniques; 14) Ethics and Science.
The Faculty did an excellent job of making their sessions engaging, tailoring their presentations to meet the students’ needs. The School had no “didactic” lectures; rather, instructors used a more holistic approach which contributed greatly to the students’ learning experience. In addition, the students had the opportunity to discuss a wide range of topics relevant to a career in research, such as: (1) How to select a problem; (2) How to choose the best preparation; (3) What techniques to use; (4) How to judge the significance (impact) of a study; (5) How to organize collaborators; (5) How to deal with competitors (real or perceived); (6) How to select a Journal for publishing a manuscript.
To complement these interactive sessions, the students conducted hands-on experiments in electrophysiology, in imaging live neurons with confocal and multiphoton microscopy, and in optogentics experiments to study behavior of model organisms.
In addition, the students attended a special lecture “Mechanism of Episodic Memories” by Nobel Laureate Dr. S. Tonegawa, Picower Professor of Biology and Neuroscience, at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and Director, RIKEN-MIT Center for Neural Circuit Genetics, Director, RIKEN Brain Science Institute.
In the evenings, the students presented their own research to their fellow students and some of the faculty. These sessions provided an excellent opportunity for the students to receive constructive feedback on their research and on their style of presentation, as well as to discuss research of mutual interest.
Part 2 Stages-(Montreal and Vancouver)
The second part of the school involved 5-day-stages in research labs at McGill or at the University of British Columbia. Five participants were matched to professors at University of British Columbia for their stage and travelled to Vancouver. The UBC labs were: Drs. B. McVicar, K. Haas, T. Murphy, Y.T. Wang, and D. Doudet. The seven remaining were matched to research labs at McGill. The McGill labs were : Drs. D. Van Meyel, D. Walker, L. Stone, A. McKinney, C. Flores, N. Cermakian, and C. Cuello.
Part 3 Canadian Association of Neuroscience Annual meeting (Vancouver)
All students attended the Annual meeting of the Canadian Association of Neuroscience in Vancouver and presented posters of their research. This arrangement allowed the School to integrate the meeting into the school’s activities.
Prior to the start of the annual meeting, the students attended all-day satellite workshops on:
Neurophotonics, a workshop that discussed new methods and applications of light microscopic imaging and optogenetic manipulation of nervous system tissues. The specific topics included: in vivo approaches (2-photon fast scanning, wide-field), super-resolution imaging, and methodologies for assessing the structure and function of large brain networks; visualization of activity in large networks; and image processing strategies to improve light microscopic images.
Neural stem cells in development and adulthood, a workshop that discussed different perspectives on the role of NSC during brain development and in adulthood, and how these cells can be reactivated during aging or after different pathological conditions.
Neural Signal and Image Processing: Quantitative Analysis of Neural Activity, a workshop that discussed recent methods for analyzing single and multiple spike trains, local field potential, EEG/MEG recordings, and fMRI data.
At the 12th annual meeting of the Canadian Association of Neuroscience in Vancouver, the students presented posters on their research, attended the main meeting symposia, as well as the Presidential address by Dr. Rick Huganir, Johns Hopkins School of Medicine on Receptors, Synapses and Memory; Keynote Lecture by Dr. Freda Miller, University of Toronto on Stem cells and growth factors: building and repairing the mammalian nervous system; Featured Plenary Lecture by Dr. Beth Stevens, Harvard Medical School on How the Immune System Sculpts Brain Circuitry.
At the conclusion of the School, it was gratifying to read their positive student evaluations of the program. Among their comments were:
“This IBRO School was an amazing experience, which gave us the opportunity to spend two intensive weeks at McGill in contact with outstanding researchers in the field of neuroscience, as well as to learn and perform experiments using new technologies that are unavailable in our countries. All the speakers that presented their work to us where very clear and were always opened to our questions and comments. Moreover, they told us about their personal experiences, encouraging us to do what motivates us, no matter the difficulties. The lab experience was a great opportunity to be in contact with people working at McGill, to see the experiments that they were performing, to see how the laboratory works and to discuss the ongoing projects with professors and students. This school was really inspiring and motivating.”
“I am very grateful to have participated, I enjoyed every moment of the school and I learned a lot. Mainly, this experience inspired me and gave me ideas on how to continue with my work, both in neuroscience and in my career in general. Some experiments shown by the teachers of this school and in the CAN meeting, I can adapt them for my experiments and I plan to do them in the shortest time, so this school directly helped the development of my doctoral thesis.”
“It was amazing to know the projects that are being developed in the lab in which I was assigned, as well as the tools, techniques and equipment available for the students. I do think that IBRO organizers did an excellent choice to assign the labs since I am working with a very similar topic in my home lab. Without forget the best thing also was how PI interact with us during school, different approaches they use to tackle neurosciences question, as well as their encouragement and sharing with us their stories all of that inspired me.”
“Thanks for this extraordinary opportunity”, “During each conference and each visit to the laboratories at McGill I felt absolutely fascinated and amazed”, and “I got to my country and to my laboratory eager to undertake new projects with new ideas, with… inspiration and passion.”
“During my PhD course I participated in several IBRO schools. For 12th Canadian School of Neuroscience: Neural Circuits and Plasticity in Health and Disease, it is the exception because of the very good organization program which was based on scientific lecture accompanied by laboratory visits. This is allow to helps in a clear and strong way to understand and consolidate the information required especially for techniques that we saw for the first time (very good programme).”
“It was amazing to be part of the 12th Canadian IBRO School. It was an extremely valuable experience in the professional aspect given the quality of the lectures and content addressed. The organization and dedication of the teachers was sharp and amazing and left us comfortable to learn and heal the doubts.”
David Ragsdale, Melissa Vollrath, Ante Padjen, Albert Aguayo, and Ellis Cooper
School Coordinators
July 6 2018
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