When a pandemic starts, there are many factors that are unknown. Rapidly acquiring information becomes critical to pandemic response. Emphasis of what we don’t know is critical to advancing immediate priorities. However, in many cases, we may know more than might be assumed. I will discuss two examples where it was possible to use information and inference to inform pandemic uncertainties and guide public health decision-making: determining quarantine durations for detected cases and for international travel, and quantifying the durability of immunity against reinfection and breakthrough infection after vaccination. Our early identification of the benefit of a negative COVID-19 test on exit was cited by the CDC in their stipulation of a shorter quarantine with test, and our assessment of justifiable travel quarantines has markedly changed the conception of appropriate enforcement for public health. An oft-cited uncertainty of the early pandemic was the durability of immunity against reinfection, leading to the promulgation of an idea that perhaps sufficient infection would lead to herd immunity. We were able to show using viral antibody waning data from closely related human-infecting coronaviruses and their evolutionary relationships with SARS-CoV-1, MERS, and SARS-Cov-2 that the durability of immunity to reinfection is short, key information for public health interventions, and to further characterize the relative durability of immunity against breakthrough infection achieved by several major vaccines, and lastly to recently characterize the frequency of booster vaccination required to suppress infection given endemic transmission. These insights can be extended to future pandemics to enable increasingly rapid response upon identification of novel vectors of infection.

Hosted by William Ratcliff

The Center of Excellence in Computational Cognition (CoCo) at Georgia Tech presents: 

Big Ideas in Computational Cognition 

Chalk Talk seminar series 

September 18, 2024 

3-4 pm EDT

J.S. Coon Bldg, Room 250 (Georgia Tech Campus)

Zoom option: https://gatech.zoom.us/j/95703973337

Mark Himmelstein

Assistant Professor, School of Psychology, Georgia Tech 

Understanding uncertainty: 

1. How can we measure uncertainty as a psychological construct?
2. What are the best ways to elicit subjective uncertainty from people?
3. How can we map these measurements onto mathematical models?

Abstract: Psychologists, philosophers, mathematicians, and decision analysts all work with uncertainty in their scholarly work. Academics and lay people alike deal with uncertainty in their everyday lives. There are many different ways to formally represent uncertainty. Statisticians build models based on parameters and probability distributions, but behavioral researchers often wish to measure people’s subjective uncertainty. Cognitive psychologists might elicit confidence reports from subjects. Economists might compare what people are willing to pay for different prospects. Forecasters might even directly report subjective probability distributions. What can we learn by comparing the various ways people might report their uncertainty? What are the strengths and weaknesses of these different approaches, and how can we map them onto psychological measurements?  Do people's representations of uncertainty change as a function of development or lifespan? Are there cognitive mechanisms that can be trained to make people better uncertainty reporters?

Conformational Dynamics and Enzyme Evolution 

Earth’s landscape and climate are dynamic over evolutionary timescales and this dynamism is a major force shaping the diversification, evolution, and adaptation of species. Our research in the emerging field of geogenomics combines geological data that records landscape change together with population genomic data of animals and plants to understand how organisms evolve and diverge in response to those external changes. To demonstrate how we can disentangle these complex relationships, I will show examples from diverse settings: sea-level change and diversification of estuarine fishes, ecologically mediated speciation of desert tortoises, and complex co-divergence on the Baja California peninsula, Mexico. Finally, I’ll give examples of some new, generalizable statistical frameworks we can use to think about and integratively model these relationships more explicitly.

Host Jenny McGuire

The greatest desire for most people with high-level spinal cord injury is for some amount of restored hand movement. A number of years ago, my lab developed an intracortical brain-computer interface (iBCI) that used recordings of single neurons in the motor cortex to make predictions of muscle activity. These, in turn, we used to control electrical stimulation of the temporarily paralyzed muscles of a monkey’s hand. This “Functional Electrical Stimulation” (FES) iBCI allowed the monkeys to voluntarily control not only the movement of their fingers, but also to grasp, and exert graded force on objects. This “biomimetic” iBCI, allowed more nearly natural control of hand movement than is possible with other existing iBCIs. Beyond the ability to restore voluntary limb movement, there is evidence that tight synchrony between attempted movement and peripheral neuromuscular stimulation may invoke neural plasticity that could accelerate recovery from spinal cord injury. In this talk, I will describe the basic work that led to our proof-of-concept in monkeys and our further development of the FES iBCI that would be applicable to a broader range of the activities of daily living. Finally, I will describe our most recent efforts to translate this technology to humans with spinal cord injury.

Register HERE

A panel of Atlanta graduate students conducting neuro-related research in a range of PhD programs will talk about their fields and academic experiences. 

Lunch will be provided. 

This is the third in the six-part Professional Development Series for Neuroscience Majors and other undergraduate students interested in neuroscience, neurotechnology, and their intersections with society. Other sessions will be held September 12, October 10, February 13, March 13, and April 10.

Register HERE

Hear from former GT neuroscience majors about their current jobs and how their education prepared them for success. 

Lunch will be provided. 

This is the second in the six-part Professional Development Series for Neuroscience Majors and other undergraduate students interested in neuroscience, neurotechnology, and their intersections with society. Other sessions will be held September 12, November 14, February 13, March 13, and April 10.

Register HERE

Learn what to expect from an undergraduate research experience in neuro and how to identify opportunities that meet your goals. Gain insights from current neuroscience majors engaged in research and hear data blitzes from graduate students and postdocs at Georgia Tech. 

Lunch will be provided. 

This is the first in the six-part Professional Development Series for Neuroscience Majors and other undergraduate students interested in neuroscience, neurotechnology, and their intersections with society. Other sessions will be held October 10, November 14, February 13, March 13, and April 10.

FREE for all prospective students anywhere in the world! The Showcase focuses on traditional academic graduate programs (master’s and doctorate) as well as deferred MBAs. Professional schools such as law, medical, etc. are not included. Registrations open on September 18 and close on October 16.

More info = https://gradshowcase.oue.gatech.edu/