International Winter Neuroscience Conference

11th - 15th April 2026
Hotel Das Central, Sölden Austria

Program

Organising Committee

Tobias Bonhoeffer (Germany)
Thomas Mrsic-Flogel (UK)

Keynote Lectures

Paola Arlotta (Harvard)
Ulman Lindenberger (Max Planck Institute for Human Development)
Iain Couzin (Max Planck Institute of Animal Behavior)

Program

Saturday 11th April

15:30 - 16:15 Registration and Welcome Reception

16:15 - 18:15 Symposium One

Neural mechanisms of linking distant events
Chair: Mihaela D. Iordanova
(Canada)

Speakers:
Ilana Witten
(USA) A neural mechanism for learning from delayed postingestive feedback
Joshua Johansen (Japan) Prefrontal encoding of an internal model for emotional inference
Andreas Lüthi (Switzerland) Dynamic interactions between memory traces during higher order conditioning
Mihaela Iordanova (Canada) Cortico-amygdala interplay in linking fear with the past and the future

18:15 - 18:30 Break

18:30 - 19:30 Keynote One

Iain Couzin

19:30 - Gala Dinner at Das Central


Sunday 12th April



08:15 - 10:15 Symposium Two

Neural Dynamics & Computation: Lessons from Diverse Systems
Chair: Lorenz Fenk
(Germany)

Speakers:
Nachum Ulanovsky
(Israel) Title TBC
Hannah Payne (USA) Spatial codes in food-caching birds
Rainer Friedrich (Switzerland) Wiring diagrams underlying experience-dependent representational manifolds
Ila Fiete (USA) Title TBC

10:15 - 10:30 Break

10:30 - 12:30 Symposium Three

Subcortical circuits of avoidance: Neural mechanisms of threat detection and action
Chairs: Andrew Holmes
(USA) and Sabine Krabbe (Germany)

Speakers:
Sonja Hofer
(UK) Injecting courage: Neural circuits for balancing risk and safety
Jan Gründemann (Germany) Fear Loops: Thalamocorticolimbic dynamics of avoidance learning
Andrew Holmes (USA) Time and punishment: Amygdala stiata's circuits calibrating risk and reward
Sabine Krabbe (Germany) Dissecting dopamine: Circuit mechanisms of approach and avoidance

12:30 - 14:00 Break

14:00 - 16:00 Special Interest Session One

Neuronal wiring and rewiring during development and adulthood
Chair: Csaba Földy
(Switzerland)

Speakers:
Lynette Lim
(Belgium) Specification and wiring of cortical inhibitory
Joris de Wit (Belgium) Gene regulatory network underlying cell type-specific wiring of hippocampal pyramidal neurons
Josef Bischofberger (Switzerland) Environmental enrichment increases sparse coding dendritic inhibition in the hippocampus
Sofia Grade (Austria) Cortical circuit rewiring after traumatic brain injury

16:00 - 16:15 Break

16:15 - 18:15 Symposium Four

Evolution of behaviour
Chairs: Marta Zlatic
(UK) and Albert Cardona (UK)

Speakers:
Gwyneth Card
(USA) Evolution of escape circuits in closely related Drosophilid species
Lucia Pietro Godino (UK) Comparing olfactory circuits of closely related Drosophila species
Lora Sweeney (Austria) Innovations in sensory-motor control across vertebrate evolution
Tom Baden (UK) The evolution of computation in the brain: insights from the vertebrate retina

18:30 - 19:30 Keynote Two

Paola Arlotta


Monday 13th April



08:15 - 10:15 Symposium Five

Cortico-cerebellar control of coordinated movement
Chair: Ian Duguid
(UK)

Speakers:
Alex Cayco-Gajic
(France) Modelling the cortico-cerebellar system
Bence Ölveczky (USA) A behavioural perspective on motor learning in the cortico-cerebellar system
Zhenyu Gao (Netherlands) Contributions of the Cerebellum and Striatum to Suprasecond Time Perception
Angus Silver (UK) Pattern separation in the cerebellar cortex during forelimb reaching

10:15 - 14:15 Break

14:15 - 16:15 Special Interest Session Two

Novel Insights into the Regulation of Glutamate Receptors and Excitatory Neurotransmission
Chair: Simon Hippenmeyer
(Austria)

Speakers:
Simon Hippenmeyer
(Austria) Role of Neural Stem Cell Lineage in Generating Cell-Type Diversity
Laurent Nguyen (Belgium) Deciphering how Mechanical Forces Shape Interneuron Development
Stephanie Rudolph (USA) Early Postnatal Neuromodulation in Cerebellar Development
Sandra Siegert (Austria) Mechanisms of Microglia Infiltation into the Developing Brain

16:15 - 16:30 Break

16:30 - 18:30 Symposium Six

Engrams
Chair: Tobias Bonhoeffer
(Germany)

Speakers:
Yaniv Ziv
(Israel) Title TBC
Tomas Ryan (Ireland) Title TBC
Flavio Donato (Switzerland) Developmental dynamics shape memory ontogeny and functions
Claudia Clopath (UK) Title TBC

18:30 - 18:45 Break

18:45 - 19:45 Keynote Three

Ulman Lindenberger


Tuesday 14th April



08:15 - 10:15 Symposium Seven

From Sensation to Action: How Somatosensory Circuits Shape Adaptive Behaviors Across Species
Chair: Lisa Fenk
(Germany)

Speakers:
Michael Brecht
(Germany) Large scale reconstructions reveal signal transformations in the early vibrissal system
John Tuthill (USA) Neural mechanisms of adaptive motor control in walking Drosophila
Alexander Mathis (Switzerland) Understanding how receptors link to perception and action
Lisa Fenk (Germany) Uncovering mechanisms of proprioception for Drosophila eye movements

10:15 - 10:30 Break

10:30 - 12:30 Symposium Eight

Memory in Motion: Development, Silence, and State-Dependent Retrieval
Chairs: Johannes Felsenberg
(Switzerland) and Scott Waddell (UK)

Speakers:
Paul Frankland
(Canada) Developmental Critical Periods for Episodic Memory
Stéphanie Trouche (France) A Novel Neuronal Circuit Embedded in the Amygdala-Accumbens Pathway for Fear Expression
Scott Waddell (UK) A Modulatory Attentional Gate Promotes Recent Memory Expression in Drosophila
Sylvie L. Lesuis (The Netherlands) Mechanisms of Stress-Induced Threat Generalization
Johannes Felsenberg (Switzerland) Integration of Information in the Absence of Action in Drosophila

12:30 - 16:00 Break

16:00 - 18:00 Symposium Nine

Two Revolutions, One future: Neuroscience and AI at a Crossroads
Chair: Andreas Tolias
(USA)

Speakers:
Sophia Sanborn
(USA) Decrypting the visual brain
Nina Miolane (USA) Geometric Intelligence in Minds and Machines
Eddie Chang (USA) A source code for words in the human brain
Mackenzie Mathis (Switzerland) Adaptive intelligence: what's left to learn for AI from neuroscience?

18:00 - 18:15 Break

18:15 - 20:15 Symposium Nine

Early Career Researchers' Symposium
Chairs: Sandra Reinert
(UK) and Sara Mederos (UK)

Speakers:
Angelo Forli
(Italy) From Social Networks to Neural Ensembles: Neural Mechanisms of Individual and Group Spatial Behaviors
Michael Forsthofer (UK) Reprogramming of visual behaviours during frog metamorphosis
Christoph Miehl (US) State-dependent population input-output transformation
Marcelo J. Moglie (UK) Midbrain circuits for the pursuit of moving targets in mice
Kristopher T. Jensen (UK) A mechanistic theory of planning in prefrontal cortex
Laura Haetzel (Germany) Thalamic circuits encode cue familiarity and learned behaviour during active avoidance
Denis Turcu (US) Learning using switching synaptic plasticity rules


Wednesday 15th April



08:30 - 10:30 Special Interest Session Three

Recurrent dynamics within a single neuron: Reconceptualizing dendritic computations
Chairs: Hermann Cuntz
(Germany) and Peter Jedlicka (Germany)


Speakers:
Viola Priesemann
(Germany) Dendritic predictive processing
Boris Gutkin (France) The oscillating dendrite
Athanasia Papoutsi Local knobs for gain modulation of dendritic excitability
Albert Gidon (Germany) Mechanisms underlying the complexity of dendritic computation

10:30 Meeting Ends


Keynote lectures by invitation only. Symposia and special interest sessions are selected from applications.

The conference will start on 11th April 2026 in the late afternoon and end on 15th April 2026 at lunchtime.

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