The first PsychSoc talk this term will be given by Dr Marko Nardini, Principal Investigator at the Department for Visual Neuroscience at UCL Institute of Ophthalmology.

http://www.homepages.ucl.ac.uk/~ucjtmna/

When: 24th January ’11 – Monday, 2nd Week, 2pm

Where: Weiskrantz Room, Psychology Department (Level C)

Marko is interested in visual, spatial and multisensory development in children. Genetic mutations disrupting the retinal transduction cascade lead to dysfunction and degeneration of photoreceptors. In the world’s first clinical trial of retinal gene replacement therapy, young adults with defects in the gene encoding the RPE65 protein had healthy copies of the missing gene inserted into the cells of the retina, leading to sight improvement. A major goal of the Institute of opthalmology is to evaluate this type of treatment in children, who have less advanced retinal disease and so are most likely to benefit.

http://www.ucl.ac.uk/ioo/research/patients/clinical_trials.html

Dr Marko Nardini (University College London) and Dr Dorothy Cowie (Goldsmiths, University of London) will speak briefly after the talk about paid internships available this summer, suitable for current 2nd year undergraduates, in labs that work on human sensory and motor development.

It promises to be a fascinating talk which looks at the most recent research in the field!

The talk is free for members and £2 for non-members.

We hope to see you there!
University of Oxford Psychology Society Committee

BioSoc-PsychSoc Christmas Party

Cocktails

Pancake Day

Indoor picnic (…stress relief just before Prelims!)

Punting

With more to come, including Career Events

Simon Baron-Cohen – 8th February 2010
Professor of Developmental Psychopathology at the University of Cambridge

Heather van der Lely – 6th May 2010
 Affiliate of Professor of Developmental Language Disorders and Cognitive Neuroscience at Harvard University

Sabine Bahn - (Date TBC) 
Neuroscience lecturer and researcher at the University of Cambridge. Her research focuses on identifying novel biomarkers for Schizophrenia and Bipolar Affective Disorder.

Alain Sampson - (Date TBC) 
Research consultant and consumer psychologist tied to the London Research and Consulting Group, LSE London Multimedia Lab alongside LSE Enterprise

Steven Rose – (TBC) 
Professor of Neurobiology at Open University and University of London. Primary research focuses are memory formation and treatments for Alzheimer’s disease

It’s  your PsychSoc for the next academic year here! There will be plenty of time for us to introduce ourselves at the start of Michaelmas, so for now this email is just about speaker events for the upcoming year. At the moment we’re working hard to try and book the best speakers we can, but one of the most important things is to find out who you would actually like to listen to.

So if you have any suggestions of someone you’d like to see gracing our lovely department, or anyone whose brains you’d love to pick, feel free to get in touch (erin.hawkins@st-hughs.ox.ac.uk) and we’ll try to work our magic to bring you the most interesting, exciting speaker events we can!

Other than that we hope you’re all having a great holiday, and see you in October!

Best wishes,
PsychSoc Committee 2009/10
Mitchell, Erin, Luke, Nina and Kei