Congratulations to Vaisakh Puthusseryppady, Ph.D., on being awarded the honor of Postdoctoral Scholar winner for best poster presentation at REMIND’s 14th Annual Emerging Scientists Symposium (2023)!

The symposium, organized by Research & Education in Memory Impairments and Neurological Disorders or REMIND, is led by UCI MIND’s predoctoral and postdoctoral trainees and aims to foster collaboration among the next generation of scientists and clinicians while promoting community outreach and education on neurodegenerative diseases. Vaisakh and the rest of the REMIND committee organized this 5-hour event, providing a platform for predoctoral and postdoctoral trainees to showcase their work, interact with faculty, staff, and students, and learn from distinguished speakers from Southern California. We commend Vaisakh for his dedication in making this symposium a success and extend our congrats again on his award!

Pictured (left to right): Yueqi Ren (graduate student winner), Joshua Grill, Ph.D., and Vaisakh Puthusseryppady, Ph.D.

We are thrilled to announce that our PI, Liz Chrastil, Ph.D., has been promoted from assistant professor to associate professor with tenure at UC Irvine!

Her tenure is a testament to her exceptional research contributions, her positive impact on her colleagues, and her commitment to her students and mentees. With Liz’s continued dedication and expertise, the lab looks forward to the continued growth of the Spatial Neuroscience Lab. Congratulations, Liz, on this well-deserved milestone in your career.

Chrastil Lab publishes a paper in Journal of Environmental Psychology (2023), “The symmetry and asymmetry of pedestrian route choice”

Authors: Montello, D.M., Davis, R.C., Johnson, M., & Chrastil, E.R.

*See link to paper under publications tab!

The National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (NINDS), a division of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), has awarded a prestigious Ruth L. Kirschstein National Research Service Award (NRSA) for Training of Postdoctoral Fellows to Dr. Michael (Mike) J. Starrett Ambrose, Principal Investigator (PI), for his research project titled “Challenging Classical Theories in Spatial Cognition: Contrasting Translator and Comparator Models of Human Retrosplenial Function.”

This highly competitive grant, with a project period of two years, aims to challenge traditional models of retrosplenial cortex computations that underlie the flexible utilization of both viewer-centered and world-centered (map-like) representations in memory and spatial navigation. By advancing our understanding of the cognitive and neural mechanisms underlying retrosplenial cortex contributions to learning, memory, and navigation, the research findings hold the potential to shed light on disease pathologies associated with damage to this specific brain region.

This grant not only supports groundbreaking research but also offers valuable training for postdoctoral fellows who are contributing to the field of neuroscience. Stay tuned for updates on this investigation in the coming years!

Over the weekend, members of our lab met up at the Great Park Ice & FivePoint Arena for a session of afternoon ice skating, gracefully (or not-so-gracefully) gliding across the ice with laughter and camaraderie. After this invigorating event, we continued our afternoon by heading to Irvine Spectrum Center for dinner. To top off the night, some of us rode the Irvine Spectrum Center Giant Wheel for the first time – a staple in Irvine! It’s always a fun and memorable experience to spend time with the lab, creating bonds outside of our research endeavors.

Pictured (left to right): Olivia, Nikki, Taylor, Wendy, Liz, Alina, Ying, Nick, and Jingjing.

Chrastil Lab publishes a review paper in Neuron (2023), “Rethinking retrosplenial cortex: Perspectives and predictions”

Authors: Alexander, A.S.*, Place, R.*, Starrett, M.J.*, Chrastil, E.R.†, & Nitz, D.A.†
* denotes equal authorship † indicates co-senior and co-corresponding authors

See link to paper under publications tab!

Chrastil Lab publishes a paper in Proceedings of the National Academy of Science (2022), “Linking global top-down views to first-person views in the brain”

Authors: Xing, J., Chrastil, E.R., Nitz, D.A., Krichmar, J.L.

*See link to paper under publications tab!

Neuroscience 2022, hosted by SfN, took place across 5 days in San Diego, CA, and many of our lab members presented their work. Shoutout to Nikki for taking photos of our poster presenters and a huge congrats to the presenters!

Talks:

• Lily Cheng – Evidence for a distributed head direction and travel trajectory system in the human brain during active navigation
• Liz Chrastil – Dynamic brain network interactions during human navigational learning

Posters (click on the presenter’s name for their photo):

• Alina Tu – The relationship between hippocampal subfield volumes and individual differences in navigation
• Daniela Cossio – The relationship between spatial navigation ability during midlife and white matter structural integrity
• Erica Ward – Brain network dynamics for navigational learning and memory
• Mike Starrett-Ambrose – Domain generality and specificity across egocentric and allocentric distance ratings
• Nikhita Kaushik – The Southern California Youth Neuroscience Association (SCYNA) as a model for engaging high school students in neuroscience
• Theo Kapogianis – Graph metrics and non-spatial navigational learning
• Vaisakh Puthusseryppady – Changes in spatial exploration behavior in early aging

Liz presented her department-wide tenure talk titled “Spatial navigation as a window into human learning and memory” on November 8th, which neatly summarized the lab’s research questions, impact, current studies, and future directions. She talked about the lab’s complementary use of immersive virtual reality technology and neuroimaging techniques to study how humans acquire and use spatial knowledge. The talk included ongoing studies and recent findings led by various lab members and concluded with the ways that navigation lends insights to human learning and memory processes. Congrats on a great talk, Liz!

Chrastil Lab publishes a paper in Machine Learning with Applications (2022), “Who believes they are good navigators? A machine learning pipeline highlights the impact of gender, commuting time, and education”

Authors: Cheng, Y., He, C., Hegarty, M., Chrastil, E.R.

*See link to paper under publications tab!