FANS Science Meeting - May

ABOUT FANS SCIENCE MEETINGS

The Department of Forensic and Neurodevelopmental Sciences (FANS) hosts a range of seminars, training programmes and events open to staff, students and the wider public. The FANS Science Meetings are a series of seminars providing our invited internal and external speakers with the opportunity to present the latest research and developments from across the field. The meetings are also a lively forum for all to exchange knowledge and ideas and build connections across the department and beyond.

MEETING FOCUS

Talk 1: Autism, mechanisms and biomarkers: Dispelling the myth and new approaches - Dr Eva Loth
Over the past years, the clinical and etiological diversity of autism has become widely recognised, yet most studies focus on identifying mean-group differences. To increase our understanding of causal mechanisms and to identify clinically useful biomarkers, we need to create neurocognitive/neurobiological profiles at the individual level that can help predict a person’s prognosis or treatment response.

In this talk, Dr Eva Loth will summarise key findings from the EU-AIMS LEAP project, including cognition, eye-tracking, EEG, fMRI/sMRI  using case-control analyses, and outline novel conceptual and methodological approaches for the discovery for analytically and clinically valid biomarkers.

Talk 2: Dissecting neocortical circuits that enable the detection of novelty - Dr Sam Cooke 
Habituation describes a range of learning processes that adaptively filter out innocuous stimuli, enabling organisms to devote themselves to important elements of the environment. Disruption to these processes divides attention and energy expenditure and  has devastating knock-on consequences for higher order cognition.

In this talk, Dr Sam Cooke will identify some of the mechanisms and circuitry that mediate this process, revealing a critical requirement for NMDAR-dependent synaptic plasticity and inhibitory systems in genetically-defined neocortical circuits. Dr Cooke will also explore the translational utility of studying simple yet fundamental forms of learning and memory.

This event is open to all King's College London staff, students and the wider community. For more information please contact: marija-magdalena.petrinovic@kcl.ac.uk

Email: fansevents@kcl.ac.uk to register your attendance.

 

 

ABOUT FANS

FANS is one of Europe’s largest research groups and one of the few teams in the world bringing together leading experts in brain development and pro and antisocial behaviours across the lifespan.  We are part of the IOPPN, world-renowned for the quality of its research and for producing more highly cited publications in psychiatry and mental health (Scopus, 2016) than any other university in the world.