Past Lectures

UCI Distinguished Lecture Series on  Brain, Learning and Memory For additional information on past UCI Distinguished Lectures, please contact us at memory@uci.edu or by telephone at (949)824-4275.

2007 - The Thirteenth Distinguished Lecture Series on Brain, Learning and Memory

Winning the Battle Against Alzheimer Disease: New Discoveries Offer New Hope
Dr. Frank M. LaFerla
UC Irvine
Wednesday, January 17, 2007 - 7:30 p.m.
Alzheimer disease is the most common brain disorder to afflict the elderly. At present, there are no effective treatments that slow or reverse the disease course. In this lecture, Dr. LaFerla will discuss the latest efforts by scientists to identify therapies for the disease, including his own breakthrough research on understanding the disease mechanism.

Little Brains with Bright Minds: Communication, Navigation and Learning in the Honeybee
Dr. Randolf Menzel
Free University of Berlin
Wednesday, March 28, 2007 - 7:30 p.m.
Honeybees have tiny brains, but their behavioral repertoire is impressive. They navigate over miles using a geometric reference system of the environment, communicate by ritualized movement (the waggle dance), and learn the many features of their food sources. They also form life-long memories. Dr. Menzel, the world's leading expert on learning in the honeybee, will give us insight into how these little brains accomplish so much, and what this tells us about our own brains.

Schizophrenia: Losing Control over Thoughts, Memories and Emotions
Dr. Deanna Barch
Washington University, St. Louis
Wednesday, May 16, 2007 - 7:30 p.m.
Schizophrenia is an extremely disabling mental illness that causes individuals to lose the normal connections between their thoughts, memories and emotions. Dr. Barch will discuss her innovative research on how the brain normally supports these quintessentially human functions, and the ways in which neurodevelopment problems alter the ability to control thoughts and emotions in individuals with schizophrenia.

2006 - The Twelfth Distinguished Lecture Series on Brain, Learning and Memory

Autism: Cognitive style not deficit?
Dr. Francesca Happé
King's College London
Wednesday, January 25, 2006
Autism is diagnosed by social-communicative impairments, but is characterized by striking skills that pose a puzzle to deficit theories. Why do people with autism so often have perfect pitch, remember exact information, and spot tiny details others miss? Dr. Happé's studies suggest that autism comprises a different, not deficient, cognitive style; a tendency to see parts, rather than wholes.
 
Watching the brain at work: Imaging the formation and retrieval of memories
Dr. Michael D. Rugg
University of California, Irvine
Tuesday, March 21, 2006 - 7:30 p.m.
The past few years have seen extraordinary progress in methods for detecting and localizing brain activity in healthy, behaving humans. These new imaging methods can be used to study how memories are initially formed and how they are later retrieved. Dr. Rugg will describe brain networks that support these critical memory functions, how these networks change with age, and what this tells us about why memory becomes more fallible as we grow older.

The Monogamous Brain: What Can Science Tell Us About Love?
Dr. Larry Young
Emory University
Tuesday, May 16, 2006 - 7:30 p.m.
Why do some individuals form stable relationships while others just can't commit? Is love really an addiction? Studies of the neural mechanisms regulating pair bond formation in monogamous animals are providing clues to these questions. This lecture will discuss the interaction of genes, the brain, and memories in generating variability in social behavior.

top

2005 - The Eleventh Distinguished Lecture Series on Brain, Learning and Memory

How Children Shape Languages: Language Acquisition and Emergence
Dr. Elissa L. Newport
University of Rochester
Tuesday, February 1, 2005
 Young children are much better than adults at learning new languages. In this lecture, Dr. Newport will discuss her remarkable studies of young, emerging sign languages around the world and her studies of children learning languages in a laboratory setting, showing that children are a prime force in developing and expanding languages as they are in the process of being formed.

How Could Brain Science Transform our Lives in the 21st Century
Dr. Richard Morris
The University of Edinburgh
Tuesday, March 29, 2005
Brain science has reached a level of maturity where our understanding of how the brain works is poised to have a growing impact on our lives. Drawing on examples from research on memory, Dr. Morris will illustrate where neuroscientists are today, where they think they are going, and how a balance of basic science and needs-driven research will impact education, the development of new medical treatments and brain-style computing.

Remembering Trauma
Dr. Richard J. McNally
Harvard University 
Tuesday, May 10, 2005
Are traumatic experiences engraved on the mind, never to be forgotten? Or does the mind protect itself by banishing them from awareness? In this lecture, Dr. McNally will debunk myths about traumatic memory, and describe his own research on people who report having recovered memories of either abuse during childhood or abduction by space aliens.

top

2004 - The Tenth Distinguished Lecture Series on Brain, Learning and Memory

What Makes Humans Smart? Lessons from Children
Dr. Elizabeth S. Spelke
Harvard University
Tuesday, February 3, 2004
Although animals easily learn about biologically important events such as finding food and avoiding danger, only humans develop rich abstract knowledge in areas not tied to our biology, from learning how to cook to theorizing about the origins of the universe. Dr. Spelke's studies of how infants and children grasp numerical concepts suggest that human cognitive ability results from two basic features of our minds--a collection of "core" knowledge systems that we share with other animals, and a second more complex system, linked to human language, that is unique to us.

Sleep, Memory and Dreams: What are they good for?
Dr. Robert Stickgold
Harvard Medical School
Tuesday, March 16, 2004
We spend one-third of our lives in the mysterious state of sleeping and, perchance, dreaming. One of the critical functions of sleep is the "off-line" reprocessing of memories. Sleep researcher Stickgold will explain how this reprocessing can strengthen, integrate, and even analyze previously stored memories. The part that dreams play in all this remains uncertain, but new analyses of dream content provide clues into a phenomenon that is almost universally experienced but little understood.

Remembering Memory and the Brain:
Open Forum Discussion with Faculty Fellows of the CNLM
Dr. James L. McGaugh and Colleagues
University of California, Irvine 
Tuesday, May 18, 2004
To celebrate the tenth year of this acclaimed public lecture series, James L. McGaugh, the professor and researcher who has been called "Mr. Memory," returns to the Barclay stage by popular demand. He will share some of the major recent developments in brain and memory research and will then be joined by a panel of faculty fellows from UCI's world-renowned memory research institute for an extended open discussion of questions from the audience.

top

2003 - The Ninth Distinguished Lecture Series on Brain, Learning and Memory

Opiates, Brownies, Sex and Cocaine: Seeking the Brain Signature for Desire
Dr. Anna Rose Childress
University of Pennsylvania
Wednesday, January 29, 2003
For most of human history, desires that profoundly motivate our behavior have been the focus of poets, philosophers and therapists...but they have been elusive targets for scientists. Dr. Childress will show us how recent advances in brain imaging allow us to "see" into the brain during our most intimate "desire states." Understanding how the brain expresses and modulates desire will aid the development of treatments for the learned disorders of desire: the addictions.  

Ah yes, I remember it well...: Remembering, Forgetting and the Movie "Memento"
Dr. Stuart Zola
Emory University
Wednesday, March 19, 2003
Think you remember accurately the details from that party or business meeting several weeks ago? Think again! Did the movie Memento accurately depict someone with memory impairment? We'll find out tonight! Dr. Zola is a leading expert in the neuroscience of memory and how it is organized in the brain. He will discuss recent insights gained from research about memory distortion, memory impairment, and maintaining successful memory function as we age.

How Time Flies: The Molecular Architecture of Memory
Dr. Thomas J. Carew
University of California, Irvine 
Tuesday, May 20, 2003
More than a century of experimental research, as well as our own personal experience, tells us that memories can persist from seconds and minutes to a lifetime. Dr. Carew will discuss his intriguing and influential research using Aplysia, a sea animal from the California coast whose unique brain structure allows a close examination of the molecular machinery that creates memories, both fleeting and lasting.

top

2002 - The Eighth Distinguished Lecture Series on Brain, Learning and Memory

Drug Addiction: Why the Brain Loses Control
Dr. Nora Volkow
Brookhaven National Laboratory
Wednesday, January 30, 2002  
What has happened to the brain of a person who is unable to control the desire to take a drug despite a conscious effort to stop? Eminent psychiatrist and neurobiologist Nora Volkow uses state-of-the-art imaging technologies to probe inside the brains of addicted people. The brain images show dysfunction both in the biochemical circuits involved with reward and in the frontal regions involved with drive and motivation. Some of these changes are a consequence of chronic exposure to drugs, but others may antedate drug use and predispose the subjects to addiction.

Educating the Brain: Lessons from Brain Imaging
Dr. John Gabrieli
Stanford University
Tuesday, March 19, 2002
Modern brain imaging technology allows us for the first time to visualize the changes in brain structure and function that underlie mental abilities such as memory, language and thought. Dr. Gabrieli's breakthrough studies using functional MRI reveal that different kinds of learning are associated with activation of different brain regions. He will explore with us how brain changes mark the growth of mental abilities--such as learning to read--in children.  

The Magic of Memory: Peeking Behind the Brain's Curtain
Dr. James L. McGaugh
University of California, Irvine 
Wednesday, May 22, 2002
Memory seems obvious, yet mystifying. What is memory? How does the brain create and preserve memories? Current research is providing answers to these ancient questions. Dr. McGaugh returns to the Barclay stage to share what researchers are learning about the cooperative and competitive interactions among the many brain systems that play a part in memory. The findings are pulling back the curtain of mystery and revealing the brain's secret systems that make and manage memory.  

top

2001 - The Seventh Distinguished Lecture Series on Brain, Learning and Memory

Why Did Episodic Memory Evolve?
Dr. Endel Tulving
Rotman Research Institute 
University of Toronto 
January 31, 2001
There are many forms of memory, but episodic memory is the only one that allows us to remember our personal past experiences.  As far as is known, only human beings have episodic memory.  All other species appear to do perfectly well without it.  Dr. Tulving, one of the world's distinguished cognitive neuroscientists, will offer thoughts on why this unique form of memory evolved in humans. 

Making Connections: Memory in the Brain  and Spinal Cord
Dr. Oswald Steward
Reeve-Irvine Research Center 
UC Irvine 
May 23, 2001 
The question of how function can be restored after brain or spinal cord injury is the subject of intense research and great public interest.  The key lies in understanding nerve cell "memory" -the vital connections that are formed during nervous system development and modified by experience.  Dr. Steward, who holds the Reeve-Irvine Chair in Spinal Cord Injury Research at UCI, is internationally recognized for his research on the cellular and molecular basis of nerve cell growth. 

top

2000 - The Sixth Distinguished Lecture Series on Brain, Learning and Memory 

Is Alzheimer's Our Reward for Living Longer?
Dr. Dennis Selkoe 
Center for Neurologic Diseases 
Harvard Medical School 
Tues., February 22, 2000 
Life expectancy rose dramatically in the recent century--from 49 to 77 years. But this increase in longevity has come with a price: More of us are now likely to suffer from age-related brain degeneration. Dr. Selkoe will discuss the dramatic progress being made in understanding the causes of Alzheimer's disease and the imminent testing of drugs that may prevent or slow its devastating effects. Co-sponsored by the UCI Institute for Brain Aging and Dementia

Critical Issues in Brain and Memory 
Dr. James L. McGaugh 
Center for the Neurobiology of Learning and Memory 
University of California, Irvine 
Tues., April 4, 2000 
Following opening comments by Dr. McGaugh on the current understanding of memory and the important issues yet to be addressed, the floor will be opened to questions from the audience. Joining Dr. McGaugh in responding to these questions is a panel of faculty from the Center for the Neurobiology of Learning and Memory. 

Memory without Remembering and Vision without Seeing
Dr. Larry Weiskrantz
Department of Experimental Psychology 
Oxford University 
Wed., May 24, 2000 
People with brain damage may be unable to learn and remember explicit information, yet they can store new information at an implicit level. Others, considered blind, are able to discriminate visual events without knowing that they do. Dr. Weiskrantz will discuss how these subtle learning and perceptual phenomena offer clues to conscious awareness. 

top

1999 - The Fifth Distinguished Lecture Series on Brain, Learning and Memory

The Myth of Repressed Memory: False Memories and Allegations of Sexual Abuse
Dr. Elizabeth Loftus 
Department of Psychology
University of Washington
February 2, 1999
The question of whether memories can be repressed in childhood and recovered later in life is one of the most hotly debated issues in jurisprudence and psychology. Dr. Loftus will discuss her twenty years of research on false memories and the scientific evidence she has brought into courtrooms as an expert witness. She is one of the country's most influential scientists in this ongoing societal and scientific controversy.

Learning Re-tunes the Brain: Discovering the Brain's Code for Experience
Dr. Norman M. Weinberger
Center for the Neurobiology of Learning and Memory and Department of
Neurobiology and Behavior (formerly Psychobiology)
University of California, Irvine
April 6, 1999
As we know, our brains store our memories. But there are no books or tape recorders in our heads. Thus, the way in which the brain encodes experience has been a great mystery. Dr. Weinberger's novel research provides a key to the solution of this problem by revealing how brain cells store the significance of life's events.

How the Mind Works
Dr. Steven Pinker
Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences and Director, McDonnell-Pew Center
for Cognitive Neuroscience
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
May 11, 1999.
How can the brain function as an engineering masterpiece that allows us to see, reason and plan- yet also be responsible for the deep emotion and quirky behaviors that are a part of everyone's life? Dr. Pinker, an imaginative researcher and one of the foremost science writers of our time, will propose answers to the fascinating puzzle of the mind.

top

1998 - The Fourth Distinguished Lecture Series on Brain, Learning and Memory 

Can Estrogen Keep You Smart?
Dr. Barbara B. Sherwin
Department of Psychology
McGill University, Montreal
January 28, 1998
Estrogen is known to have an important effect on areas of the brain responsible for memory. Dr. Sherwin's pioneering studies of young, middle-aged and elderly women show that estrogen helps maintain specific kinds of memory and suggest that this hormone may benefit older women's quality of life in unexpected ways.

Language, Brain and Mind: Early Experience Alters the Perception of Speech
Dr. Patricia K. Kuhl
Child Development Center
University of Washington
April 1, 1998
Language experience during the first year of life has a dramatic and lasting effect on infants' perception and production of speech. Dr. Kuhl will discuss her insightful research on infants from many cultures, showing how early language experience produces the unique way in which individuals understand and speak their "mother tongue."

The Aging Brain: Distinguishing Normal and Pathological Memory Loss
Dr. Jelle Jolles
Maastricht Brain and Behavior Institute, Netherlands
May 13, 1998
As we all suspect, memory function appears to decline with age. The rate at which this happens is determined by both health-related and psychosocial factors, including education. Dr. Jolles' research provides valuable new insights into our understanding of the cognitive problems of the elderly.

top

1997 - The Third Distinguished Lecture Series on Brain, Learning and Memory

Use It or Lose It: Brain Plasticity across the Lifespan
Dr. William T. Greenough
Beckman Institute
University of Illinois
February 3, 1997
Our brains continuously change in response to our experience. Dr. Greenough's pioneering research strongly supports the adage "use it or lose it." His studies of anatomical changes induced in the brain by experience underline the importance of being immersed in intellectually stimulating environments throughout life.

The Secret Life of an Aging Neuron: Successful Brain Aging vs. Alzheimer's Disease
Dr. Carl W. Cotman
Institute for Brain Aging and Dementia
University of California, Irvine
April 9, 1997
Dr. Cotman is internationally recognized for his studies revealing the basis of the brain degeneration found with aging. Attacks by oxidants and other damaging agents induce brain neurons to commit "cellular suicide." Despite such assault, our brains continually repair neurons and thus attempt to defend against such adversity. Learning the secrets of this restorative process holds the promise of improving the lives of the elderly, including Alzheimer's patients.

New Insights into Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder
Dr. Roger K. Pitman
VA Research Service
Harvard University
May 21, 1997
A leading researcher of post-traumatic stress disorder, Dr. Pitman has studied the long-term consequences of stressful events experienced by combat veterans and civilian trauma victims, including sexually abused children. His findings provide new insights into emotion and memory and offer promise of new therapy for stress-induced disorders of memory.

top

1996 - The Second Distinguished Lecture Series on Brain, Learning and Memory 

Unlocking the Secrets of Memory
Dr. Larry R. Squire
Departments of Psychiatry and Neurosciences
University of California, San Diego
January 31, 1996
Dr. Squire's research on learning and memory in brain-injured humans and primates has provided important new insights into how the brain works. He is the world's leading scientist studying how the brain forms different kinds of memories -- the learning the names of friends to learning and new skill such as golf. This lecture will help us better understand the mysterious gray matter that makes up the most complex organ in the universe.

Childhood Memories: Here Today, Where Tomorrow?
Dr. Patricia J. Bauer
Institute of Child Development
University of Minnesota
March 13, 1996
Dr. Bauer's influential research on memory in infants and young children has revolutionized our thinking about children's memories. In an imaginative series of experiments, she has shown that very young children, and even infants, create long-lasting memories. These findings have important implications for parents and others who care for children.

Stress and the Brain: Good News and Bad News
Dr. Robert M. Sapolsky
Department of Biological Sciences
Stanford University
June 11, 1996
Dr. Sapolsky's pioneering research has revealed how the psychological challenges and chronic stress so common in our lives can damage brain function, disrupt memory and contribute to stress-related illnesses. He is the acclaimed author of "Why Zebras Don't Get Ulcers," and is widely recognized for his studies of the connections between emotion and physical well-being.

top

1995 - The Distinguished Lecture Series on Brain, Learning and Memory

The Fragile Power of Human Memory
Dr. Daniel Schachter
Harvard University
January 24, 1995
Dr. Daniel Schachter is one of the world's leading researchers in brain and memory, especially the study of amnesia. His lecture will explore the fragile power of memory by considering unconscious effects of past experiences, amnesia, evidence for different memory systems in the brain, traumatic memories and false memories.

Learning, Drug Anticipation and Drug Addiction
Dr. Shepard Siegal
McMaster University
March 28, 1995
Dr. Shepard Siegal has conducted pioneering investigations on how the environment in which drugs are taken can dramatically alter the effects of the drugs. This lecture will discuss the role of learning in drug addiction and how learned anticipation of receiving drugs contributes to drug tolerance, craving and withdrawal systems.

Making and Preserving Memories
Dr. James L. McGaugh
University of California, Irvine
May 10, 1995
Dr. James L. McGaugh, Founding Director of the Center for the Neurobiology of Learning and Memory, is internationally recognized for his studies of drug and hormone influences on memory. This lecture will examine recent findings linking high levels of emotion and hormones with strong and lasting memories, and will consider the implications for understanding memory disorders.