Annual Neuroscience Retreat: Irene Tracey (University of Oxford), Robert Baloh (Cedars-Sinai Medical Center)

September 26, 2019 and September 27, 2019
9:00 am
Trout Lodge (13528 State Highway AA, Potosi, MO 63664)

Irene Tracy: “Advanced neuroimaging of pain, analgesia and anaesthesia induced altered states of consciousness” 
Robert Baloh: “C9orf72 in neurodegeneration and neuroinflammation”


The Annual Neuroscience Retreat is organized by graduate students across programs and departments, and intended to foster scientific and social interaction among students, post docs, and faculty in the WashU Neuroscience community.

The Retreat will be held at Trout Lodge in Potosi, MO.

Note that the Retreat begins Thursday morning with a full-day program, and ends on Friday after lunch. Visit the Neuroscience Retreat webpage for all the information.


Thursday, September 26

8:00am            Continental Breakfast (Mallard Meeting Room, 2nd Floor)

9:45am            Welcome, Opening Remarks (Mallard Meeting Room, 2nd Floor)

9:50am            Short Talks, Session One

  • Lindsey Brier (Neuroscience Program; Culver Lab, WashU Department of Radiology) – “Wide-field multi-scale calcium imaging of mouse cortical dynamics”
  • Benjamin Seitzman (Neuroscience Program; Petersen Lab, WashU Department of Neurology) – “Trait-like variants in human functional brain networks”
  • Suyash Harlalka (Biomedical Engineering Program; Han Lab, WashU Department of Neuroscience) – “Dynamic reorganization of neuronal representations in novel environments”
  • Janine Bijsterbosch, PhD (Assistant Professor, WashU Department of Radiology) – “Using large-scale fMRI data to develop functional connectivity markers of mental health”

10:50am          Break

11:00am          Keynote Speaker

  • Irene Tracey, DPhil (University of Oxford) – “Advanced neuroimaging of pain, analgesia and anaesthesia induced altered states of consciousness”

12:00pm          Lunch and Table Topics (Dining Room, 4th Floor)

1:00pm            Sports Break; Set up Posters in Rec Center

3:00pm            Room check-in (Main Lobby, 4th Floor)

3:30pm            Introduction of first year grad students – ALL PROGRAMS (Mallard Meeting Room, 2nd Floor)

3:45pm            Short Talks, Session Two

  • Christopher Pacia (Biomedical Engineering Program; Chen Lab, WashU Department of Biomedical Engineering) – “Feasibility and safety of focused ultrasound-enabled brain tumor liquid biopsy (FUS-LBx) in large animals”
  • Zhikai Liu (Neuroscience Program; Bagnall Lab, WashU Department of Neuroscience) – “Neural computation of self-motion signals in the larval zebrafish”
  • Wouter Kool, PhD (Assistant Professor, WashU Department of Psychological & Brain Sciences) – “Metacontrol in reinforcement learning”

4:45pm            Poster Session: Odd Number Posters (Rec Center)

6:00pm            Dinner and introduction of new faculty members (Dining Room, 4th Floor)

7:30pm            Poster Session: Even Number Posters (Rec Center)

8:30pm            Retreat Party & NeurOlympics (Outside Deck behind Lodge)

Friday, September 27

8:00am             Breakfast (Dining Room, 4th Floor); Room checkout NO LATER THAN 11:30am

9:30am             Short Talks, Session Three (Mallard Meeting Room, 2nd Floor)

  • Allison Soung (Neuroscience Program; Klein Lab, WashU Department of Medicine) – “Glial inflammatory responses regulate recovery from West Nile virus encephalitis”
  • Oshri Avraham, PhD (Cavalli Lab, WashU Department of Neuroscience) – “Fatty acid synthesis in satellite glial cells regulates peripheral axon regeneration”
  • Meaghan Creed, PhD (Assistant Professor, WashU Department of Anesthesiology) – “Leveraging synaptic plasticity to treat disease”

10:15am          Break; Room checkout NO LATER THAN 11:30am

10:30am          Short Talks, Session Three (cont’d) (Mallard Meeting Room, 2nd Floor)

  • Yang Shi, PhD (Holtzman Lab, WashU Department of Neurology) – “Microglia drive neurodegeneration and mediate APOE’s effect on neurodegeneration in a tauopathy mouse model”
  • Yingyue Zhou (Developmental, Regenerative and Stem Cell Biology Program; Colonna Lab, WashU Department of Pathology & Immunology) – “Single-nucleus transcriptional mapping of mouse and human Alzheimer’s disease reveals TREM2-dependent and -independent cellular responses to pathology”

11:00am          Keynote Speaker

  • Robert Baloh, MD, PhD (Cedars-Sinai Medical Center) – “C9orf72 in neurodegeneration and neuroinflammation”

12:00pm          Retreat Conclusion/Lunch