Highlight:
Toward optimal learning dynamics
Garrison W. Cottrell and the Temporal Dynamics of Learning Center

TDLC's Co-director, Gary Cottrell, was asked to write a one-page description of some of the best work out of our Science of Learning Center for a workshop in Washington, where all the Science of Learning Centers and some distinguished guests will be discussing what we have learned in the last 9 years of the program. He was asked to list two major discoveries and two challenges.

What We Know About Spike-Timing-Dependent Plasticity (STDP)
Review by TDLC Investigator Feldman is featured in Neuron (8/23/12)


What is Spike-Timing-Dependent Plasticity (STDP) and what is our current understanding of STDP?

It has been 15 years since the discovery of STDP, which has become a leading candidate mechanism for information storage and learning in the nervous system.

TDLC investigator Dan Feldman has written a review in Neuron that summarizes our current understanding of STDP, from its varied forms and cellular mechanisms to theoretical properties and to the evidence that it contributes to plasticity and learning in vivo. Read the abstract

A Robot With a Reassuring Touch (September 18, 2012)

Research by TDLC's Javier Movellan and Emanuel Todorov is featured in the New York Times! Read the article

Image: Alex Simpkins and Mike Kelley

Making San Diego a Hub for Developmental Cognitive Neuroscience

A group of neuroscientists recently gathered for the Inaugural Symposium for the San Diego Consortium for Developmental Cognitive Neuroscience on November 29, 2012.

The event, co-sponsored by TDLC, along with UCSD Deptartments of Neurosciences and Psychiatry, was planned to kick off a newly created group -- The San Diego Consortium for Developmental Cognitive Neuroscience. The inaugural meeting was co-organized and moderated by TDLC's Dr. Paula Tallal. The distinguished speakers included TDLC's Rusty Gage, Andrea Chiba, Tim Brown and Terry Sejnowski, who spoke to a standing room only audience. The inaugural symposium and poster session attracted over 150 participants from San Diego's academic institutions as well as industry demonstrating the broad interest in the topic of developmental cognitive neuroscience.

Trainee and Fellow Education and Development Highlights
Presented at the National Science Board Site Visit of Sept. 2012

TDLC's Christopher Kanan and Linda Salamanca presented a poster at the recent National Science Board Visit (Sept. 19, 2012) which highlights various opportunities for TDLC Trainees and Fellows. Included are the following events:

• The Fifth Annual iSLC Conference at TDLC (Apr. 21-23, 2012),
• TDLC Training Grants
• Fellows Lecture Series and Retreat, and
• The Summer Fellows Institute (SFI) of Aug. 6-18, 2012.
  
  Click here to see the poster.
  
  

Reach for Tomorrow 2012

TDLC has a longstanding commitment to K-12 education, with well-established outreach efforts directed towards educators, students, and parents. The Center takes particular pride in working with communities underrepresented in the STEM fields (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics). Not only are these students less likely to have access to the resources necessary to fulfill their academic goals, but they are more likely, under the circumstances, to have lower expectations, and often by the time they reach middle school, these youngsters have abandoned their dreams and have surrendered to the notion that a post-secondary education just isn't in the cards for them. This doesn't necessarily mean that these students aren't optimistic about their futures, but that they expect a little less of themselves. To reach out to these students, TDLC partners with groups and organizations that have a well established track record in K-12 outreach.

Summer Fellows Institute (SFI) 2012

With well over 100 Center trainees (students and postdoctoral scholars advised and mentored by our investigators), TDLC is committed to advancing their careers by providing resources for research, including project funding and assembling an extensive network of colleagues with whom to collaborate. However, for those among them seeking formal training in TDLC's primary research areas, there is the Summer Fellows Institute (SFI). The SFI (affectionately referred to as "bootcamp") is a unique, full-time two-week program hosted by the Center on the campus of UC San Diego. Held August 6 - 18, the SFI offered instruction to 19 trainees from TDLC and two other NSF Science of Learning Centers: the Spatial Intelligence and Learning Center and the Visual Language and Visual Learning Center. More