Proceedings of the Barrels II Workshop: sensorimotor loops

Rodents use their whiskers to explore their environment and to make very fine discriminations in textures and sizes of objects. Exploratory “whisking” movements consist of large amplitude, rhythmic whisker protractions that occur at characteristic frequencies of 5–10?Hz. Rodents likely whisk to move their receptor surface over the object they are touching. A fundamental understanding of this important motor behavior and the sensorimotor loops that control it were the focus of the final session of the Barrels Workshop. This session began with talks from David Kleinfeld (University of California San Diego), Miguel Nicolelis (Duke University), and Jonathan Rubin (University of Pittsburgh). These talks were followed by short presentations from Steven Leiser (Drexel University), Marcin Szwed (Weitzman Institute), Ford Ebner (Vanderbilt University), Charles Pluto (Medical College of Ohio), and Elisabeth Foeller (Washington University).     

Proceedings of the Barrels II Workshop: sensorimotor loops

Rodents use their whiskers to explore their environment and to make very fine discriminations in textures and sizes of objects. Exploratory "whisking" movements consist of large amplitude, rhythmic whisker protractions that occur at characteristic frequencies of 5-10 Hz. Rodents likely whisk to move their receptor surface over the object they are touching. A fundamental understanding of this important motor behavior and the sensorimotor loops that control it were the focus of the final session of the Barrels Workshop. This session began with talks from David Kleinfeld (University of California San Diego), Miguel Nicolelis (Duke University), and Jonathan Rubin (University of Pittsburgh). These talks were followed by short presentations from Steven Leiser (Drexel University), Marcin Szwed (Weitzman Institute), Ford Ebner (Vanderbilt University), Charles Pluto (Medical College of Ohio), and Elisabeth Foeller (Washington University).     

Proceedings of the Barrels II Workshop: cortical circuits

The second session of the Barrels II Workshop focused on the function of cortical circuitry in the rodent vibrissa-to-barrel system. The session began with talks by Asaf Keller (University of Maryland), Christopher Moore (MIT), and David Pinto (Brown University). These presentations were followed by shorter talks by Mark Andermann (MIT), Alison Barth (Carnegie-Mellon University), Dirk Feldmeyer (Max Planck Institute), Cathy Garabedian (UCSF), Garrett Stanley (Harvard University), and Simona Temereanca (University of Pittsburgh). Presentations covered several central themes, including the functional organization of cortical circuitry, thalamocortical response transformations, temporal response properties, and the role of vibrissa resonance in high frequency representations. For simplicity, this review is organized by these central themes and does not follow the order of presentations at the meeting.     

Proceedings of the Barrels II Workshop: cortical circuits

The second session of the Barrels II Workshop focused on the function of cortical circuitry in the rodent vibrissa-to-barrel system. The session began with talks by Asaf Keller (University of Maryland), Christopher Moore (MIT), and David Pinto (Brown University). These presentations were followed by shorter talks by Mark Andermann (MIT), Alison Barth (Carnegie-Mellon University), Dirk Feldmeyer (Max Planck Institute), Cathy Garabedian (UCSF), Garrett Stanley (Harvard University), and Simona Temereanca (University of Pittsburgh). Presentations covered several central themes, including the functional organization of cortical circuitry, thalamocortical response transformations, temporal response properties, and the role of vibrissa resonance in high frequency representations. For simplicity, this review is organized by these central themes and does not follow the order of presentations at the meeting.     

Barrels XXIII: Barrels by the shore

The 23rd annual Barrels meeting was held on the University of California, San Diego campus and highlighted the latest advances in the whisker-to-barrel pathway and beyond. The annual meeting brought together investigators from a dozen countries to present their data in posters and short talks. The meeting focused on several themes, first the barrel system was used as a model to study the consequences that result from alterations in the normal pattern(s) of development. A second session focused on what happens to whisker information once it leaves the layer IV barrel. A third session addressed issues of coding within the barrel system and a final session highlighted the latest advances in the engineering of transgenic mouse lines. The meeting highlighted the utility of the barrel system to study cortical circuitry in the normal and pathological state.     

Dissociation of corticothalamic and thalamocortical axon targeting by an EphA7-mediated mechanism

Molecular mechanisms generating the topographic organization of corticothalamic (CT) circuits, which comprise more than three-quarters of the synaptic inputs onto sensory relay neurons, and their interdependence with thalamocortical (TC) axon development are unknown. Using in utero electroporation-mediated gene transfer, we show that EphA7-mediated signaling on neocortical axons controls the within-nucleus topography of CT projections in the thalamus. Notably, CT axons that mis-express EphA7 do not shift the relative positioning of their pathway within the subcortical telencephalon (ST), indicating that they do not depend upon EphA7/ephrin-A signaling in the ST for establishing this topography. Moreover, mis-expression of cortical EphA7 results in disrupted topography of CT projections, but unchanged inter- and intra-areal topography of TC projections. Our results support a model in which EphA/ephrin-A signaling controls independently the precision with which CT and TC projections develop, yet is essential for establishing their topographic reciprocity.     

Modeling absence seizure dynamics: implications for basic mechanisms and measurement of thalamocortical and corticothalamic latencies

A successful physiologically based continuum model of the corticothalamic system is applied to determine the relative contributions of axonal and intrinsic cellular delays to the waveforms of absence seizures. The predicted period of the absence seizure depends linearly on model parameters describing thalamocortical, corticothalamic, intracortical, and synaptodendritic delays, and these dependences are linked to the seizure mechanism by showing how time intervals between peaks in the waveforms depend on the parameters. Counterintuitively, it is found that a peak in the local field potential recorded in the thalamic relay nuclei can precede the peak in the cortical field that drove it, without violating causality, but rendering naive interpretation of time intervals between peaks invalid. We argue that a thalamocortical loop mechanism for absence seizures is consistent with intrathalamic cellular properties being the leading determinant of the frequency of spike-wave discharges in rat genetic models, with the combination of network and cellular properties providing a natural explanation for the lower frequency of human absence seizures. Finally, our results imply that the seizure frequency is not determined by the fastest thalamocortical and corticothalamic fibers, but rather depends on an effective weighted conduction velocity of all pathways present.     

Barrels III: Proceedings of a Satellite Symposium of the 1990 Society for Neuroscience Meeting

On October 27 and 28, 1990, approximately 100 somatosensory neurobiologists met in St. Louis, Missouri to discuss the current state of inquiry into the organization of the somatosensory system, emphasizing those portions of the system devoted to processing of inputs from digitized cutaneous organs, such as the rodent mystacial vibrissae. Given the homeomorphic relationship between the vibrissae and cortical and subcortical barrels, a large number of laboratories now employ this model to ask fundamental questions about central processing of sensory inputs, mechanisms controlling topographic pattern formation, and substrates for injury-induced neuronal reorganization. The focus of the third annual Barrels Symposium (Barrels III) was on behavioral aspects of the whisker sense, cholinergic regulation of cortical modules, and genetic and peripheral determinants of barrel development.     

Barrels by the sea: Barrels XX meeting report

The 20th annual Barrels meeting brought together researchers who utilize behavioral, physiological, anatomical, and molecular techniques to understand the structure and function of the barrel system. Barrels XX featured talks on the role inhibition has in shaping cortical responses within the barrel system, the molecular cues that influence the development of the whisker-to-barrel system, and the synaptic plasticity that can shape responses within the system. The meeting highlighted why the whisker-to-barrel system is an ideal model to investigate the development of cortical circuitry and how its functioning can influence behavioral responses.     

Barrels VIII: Proceedings of a Satellite Symposium of the 1995 Society for Neuroscience Meeting

A meeting of somatosensory and developmental biologists was held on November 10 and 11, 1995, in San Diego, California, to consider recent findings pertaining to the somatosensory system. The focus of this, the eighth annual Barrels Symposium (Barrels VIII), was on somatosensory circuits and plasticity, and the development of somatosensory primary afferent projections and barrel-like aggregates in the brainstem, thalamus, and cortex     

Barrels by the sea: Barrels XX meeting report

The 20th annual Barrels meeting brought together researchers who utilize behavioral, physiological, anatomical, and molecular techniques to understand the structure and function of the barrel system. Barrels XX featured talks on the role inhibition has in shaping cortical responses within the barrel system, the molecular cues that influence the development of the whisker-to-barrel system, and the synaptic plasticity that can shape responses within the system. The meeting highlighted why the whisker-to-barrel system is an ideal model to investigate the development of cortical circuitry and how its functioning can influence behavioral responses.     

Conference Proceedings: 9th Molecular Modeling Workshop

Preface As editor of this journal and as secretary of the Molecular Graphics and Modelling Society (Deutschsprachige Sektion), I have pleasure in presenting this volume: It contains a wealth of material including all aspects of molecular modeling, ranging from method development and application to multimedia data presentation. With over 200 attendees the workshop attracted more people than ever before. As always, the meeting was devoted mainly to talks by graduate students and postdocs, so that the traditional workshop character was once again evident. Thanks are due to all those who have submitted contributions and the keynote speakers Manfred Sippl (University of Vienna), Hugo Kubinyi (BASF Ludwigshafen) and Gerd Volkers (ETH Zuerich). Special thanks go to Dr. Michael Krug (Merck, Darmstadt) who was in charge of the organization of the scientific program and to Prof. Juergen Brickmann and his group for trouble-free course of the technical part of the program that also offered the chance to get insight into the possibilities of real multimedia application in the field of molecular modeling. The abstracts collected here give a flavour of the meeting. We do hope that this collection of abstracts will encourage attendance of the 10th Molecular Modelling Workshop 1996 in Darmstadt. The Molecular Modelling Workshops are organized under the auspices of the Molecular Graphics and Modelling Society - Deutschsprachige Sektion. Tim Clark, Erlangen 6th July 1995     

Barrels XXII meeting report: Barrels blow into the Windy City

The 22nd Annual Barrels Meeting blew into Evanston, near the Windy City, in November 2009 as the meeting was hosted on the Evanston, IL campus of Northwestern University. The longest running satellite meeting to the Society for Neuroscience Meeting annually brings together researchers from around the world focused on the development, function, behavior, and physiology of the rodent whisker-to-barrel system and other associated cortical and subcortical areas. The 2009 edition of the meeting was focused on three central themes: the molecular development and developmental plasticity in barrel cortex, optical analysis of barrel cortex function, and the coding of touch. The main symposia were complemented by short talks, data blitz sessions, and a poster session.     

Proceedings of the 2016 China Cancer Immunotherapy Workshop

A1 Proceedings of 2016 China Cancer Immunotherapy Workshop, Beijing, China Bin Xue, Jiaqi Xu, Wenru Song, Zhimin Yang, Ke Liu, Zihai Li A2 Set the stage: fundamental immunology in forty minutes Zihai Li A3 What have we learnt from the anti-PD-1/PD-L1 therapy of advanced human cancer? Lieping Chen A4 Immune checkpoint inhibitors in lung cancer Edward B. Garon A5 Mechanisms of response and resistance to checkpoint inhibitors in melanoma Siwen Hu-Lieskovan A6 Checkpoint inhibitor immunotherapy in lymphoid malignancies Wei Ding A7 Translational research to improve the efficacy of immunotherapy in genitourinary malignancies Chong-Xian Pan A8 Immune checkpoint inhibitors in gastrointestinal malignancies Weijing Sun A9 What’s next beyond PD-1/PDL1? Yong-Jun Liu A10 Cancer vaccines: new insights into the oldest immunotherapy strategy Lei Zheng A11 Bispecific antibodies for cancer immunotherapy Delong Liu A12 Updates on CAR-T immunotherapy Michel Sadelain A13 Adoptive T cell therapy: personalizing cancer treatment Cassian Yee A14 Immune targets and neoantigens for cancer immunotherapy Rongfu Wang A15 Phase I/IIa trial of chimeric antigen receptor modified T cells against CD133 in patients with advanced and metastatic solid tumors Meixia Chen, Yao Wang, Zhiqiang Wu, Hanren Dai, Can Luo, Yang Liu, Chuan Tong, Yelei Guo, Qingming Yang, Weidong Han A16 Cancer immunotherapy biomarkers: progress and issues Lisa H. Butterfield A17 Shaping of immunotherapy response by cancer genomes Timothy A. Chan A18 Unique development consideration for cancer immunotherapy Wenru Song A19 Immunotherapy combination Ruirong Yuan A20 Immunotherapy combination with radiotherapy Bo Lu A21 Cancer immunotherapy: past, present and future Ke Liu A22 Breakthrough therapy designation drug development and approval Max Ning A23 Current European regulation of innovative oncology medicines: opportunities for immunotherapy Harald Enzmann, Heinz Zwierzina