Marine Biological Laboratory

Friday Evening Lecture Series

Forbes Lectures
July 14 & 15, 2011
Lillie Auditorium, 8:00 PM

Russell D. Fernald, Stanford University

Russell D. Fernald is professor of Neuroscience, Biology and the Benjamin Scott Crocker Professor of Human Biology. Professor Fernald joined the Stanford faculty in 1991 from the University of Oregon where he was a founding member and director of the Institute for Neuroscience. His research is focused on how social behavior influences the brain. In 1999, he received the Javits Neuroscience Investigator Award, the highest honor bestowed on researchers by the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke, given to investigators who have a distinguished record of substantial contribution in neurological science. In 2003 Fernald was named a Fellow in the American Association of Arts and Sciences, and in 2004 received the prestigious Rank Prize, an award established by Lord and Lady Rank to honor research that has advanced scientific knowledge in the realm of vision or optoelectronics. He was also honored for work that he did with collaborators on understanding how vertebrate lenses function. Professor Fernald was awarded the Bing Fellowship (1996-99) for innovative contributions to undergraduate education, and in 1998 won the Allen V. Cox medal for fostering undergraduate students interest in research. In 2000, Fernald was awarded the Lloyd W. Dinkelspiel Award for distinctive contribution to undergraduate education, and in 2003 was named the Mimi and Peter Haas University Fellow in Undergraduate Education.

07/14: "Social Control of Brain Structure: Cellular Consequences of Changes in Social Status"
Introduction by Catherine Carr

Lecture Abstract:
Individuals in a social system typically behave so the society functions smoothly. Conspicuous animal signals convey essential information about survival and reproduction that are integrated with internal information including social and reproductive status to influence behavior of other animals. But how do individuals acquire the information they need to modulate their behavior and reproductive state? And how do animals use that information to decide what to do? Using a particularly suitable fish model system with remarkably complex social interactions, we show how the social context tightly regulates reproduction and shapes the reproductive control by the brain. Animals observe social interactions carefully to gather information vicariously that then guides their behavior. Social opportunities produce rapid changes in gene expression in key nuclei in the brain, a genomic response that readies the individual to occupy a new social niche, including changes in neuronal cell size and connections in key reproductive nuclei. Understanding mechanisms through which social information is transduced into cellular and molecular changes allows a deeper understanding of how brain systems responds to social information.

Dr. Catherine Carr will introduce Dr. Russell Fernald on July 14. Dr. Carr is Professor of Biology at the University of Maryland, College Park. She earned her B.S. in Zoology from the University of Cape Town in 1977, her M.A. in Biology from State University New York at Buffalo in 1978, her Ph. D. in Neuroscience from University of California at San Diego in 1984, and completed a postdoctoral fellowship at California Institute of Technology in 1987. In 1984, Dr. Carr received a National Research Service Award and was awarded the Society for Neurotheology Prize for an Outstanding Paper by a Young Investigator. She was an Alfred P. Sloan Research Fellow in 1988. From 1992 to 1998, Dr. Carr was a member of the NIH Hearing Panel and became a member again in 2002. She was an Assistant Professor of Zoology at the University of Maryland, College Park from 1990 to 1995, an Associate Professor from 1995 to 1999, and became Professor of Biology in 1999. Dr. Carr's career at the MBL began as a Scholar-In-Residence for the Neural Systems and Behavior course in 1990. She was appointed to the faculty of the course in 1995 and was Co-Director from 2000-2004. From 2005-2008 she served as Grass lab director, and has served on Science Council from 2005-2011. Dr. Carr is currently a trustee of the Grass Foundation.

07/15: "How Does Social Status Influence the Brain?"
Introduction by Graeme Davis

Lecture Abstract:
Inequality in social status can have profound effects on the physical and mental health of individuals. For example, children from low socioeconomic status backgrounds have higher rates of mortality and are at greater risk for injuries, chronic medical conditions, and behavioral disorders compared with those from high socioeconomic status. Similarly, in adults, many studies have shown that higher ranking individuals in organizations may have only one third the mortality rate of those of lower ranking individuals. But how does our perception of social rank influence the brain and the body? What are the mechanisms that allow social information to change brains? In animal systems, the effects of low social status can be measured and promise the hope of identifying underlying physiology responsible. I will discuss social regulation in animals that can change brains and describe how we can discover actual mechanisms underlying such change.

Dr. Graeme Davis will introduce Dr. Russell Fernald on July 15. Dr. Davis was an undergraduate at Williams College where he majored in Biology and completed an undergraduate thesis in Neuroscience under the guidance of Dr. Steven Zottoli. Dr. Davis then moved to the University of Massachusetts, Amherst for graduate school. His graduate work in the laboratory of Dr. Rodney Murphey focused on the development of synaptic connections in the invertebrate central nervous system. Dr. Davis then moved to the University of California, Berkeley, where he did postdoctoral work with Dr. Corey Goodman. In the Goodman laboratory, Dr. Davis began to combine the powerful tools of Drosophila molecular/genetics with synaptic electrophysiology to explore the molecular mechanisms that establish and modulate the functional properties of nerve and muscle. Dr. Davis then moved across San Francisco Bay, establishing his own independent research laboratory at the University of California, San Francisco in 1998. Dr. Davis has remained at UCSF and is now Albert Bowers Professor and Chairman of the Department of Biochemistry and Biophysics. Dr. Davis' laboratory continues to exploit the power of Drosophila genetics to identify new genes and signaling systems that stabilize neural function throughout the life of an organism, with implications for diverse neurological diseases. Dr. Davis has maintained a long standing connection with the Marine Biological Laboratory. He grew up spending summers in Woods Hole as a child, learning to sail at Quissett Harbor. He has been a student in the Neural Systems and Behavior Course, a Grass Fellow, a faculty member in the Neural Systems and Behavior Course and is now co-director of the Neurobiology Course.

About the Forbes Lectures:
Since 1959, the special two-part Forbes Lecture has been supported by The Grass Foundation, a private foundation that supports research and education in neuroscience. The lectures are given in honor of pioneering neurobiologist Alexander Forbes. Traditionally, the Forbes lecturer also spends several weeks at the MBL, working alongside the Grass Fellowship Program.