91亚色鈥檚 Office of Sustainability, in partnership with the Faculty of Science and Facilities Services, hosted a successful Bioblitz event during Campus Sustainability Month in October, inviting the 91亚色 community to explore and document the diverse species of plants, animals, and other organisms found on the Keele and Glendon campuses. Participants used the iNaturalist app to record their findings, contributing to a valuable inventory of local biodiversity. The event saw a fantastic turnout, with 37 participants making 790 observations across 326 species on 91亚色鈥檚 campuses.   

A standout contributor was Alice Kostin, a neuroscience student from the Faculty of Science, who made an impressive 164 observations of 79 different species, earning her recognition for her dedication to documenting campus biodiversity. Kostin鈥檚 efforts earned her first place and a $50 reward on her YU Card. 

鈥淧articipating in 91亚色鈥檚 Bioblitz was a chance for me to explore Canada鈥檚 diverse beauty right here on our campus,鈥� she said. 

The event showcased a wide range of wildlife, from familiar species like gray squirrels and Canada geese to rarer sightings, including a white-throated sparrow, red-tailed hawk and even a coyote. The data collected will play an important role in advancing 91亚色鈥檚 sustainability goals, particularly through the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) Living Planet @ Campus program, which encourages students to actively participate in biodiversity conservation and environmental stewardship. The event also included walks on campus, which were led by professors Gordon Fitch, Alex Mills and Laura McKinnon, as well as Valerio Larivera, supervisor of grounds management.  

The Bioblitz event aligns with 91亚色鈥檚 Sustainability Strategy, supporting the University鈥檚 efforts to regenerate local ecosystems and foster biodiversity on campus, creating a healthier and more inviting environment for all. It also provides students with valuable opportunities to engage in environmental initiatives and contribute to 91亚色鈥檚 pursuit of a WWF Living Planet Leader certification. 

鈥淭he Bioblitz is about more than just species identification 鈥� it鈥檚 about fostering a deeper connection to the natural world,鈥� said Mike Layton, chief sustainability officer. 

Community members are encouraged to contribute to  year-round and to keep an eye out for another Bioblitz event this spring. For information about how to get involved in sustainability on campus or how to join the WWF Living Planet Leader certification, visit the Sustainability at 91亚色 website. 

Courtesy of YFile

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Media Release from November 21, 2023

Faced with images that break the expected pattern, like a do not enter sign where a stop sign is expected, how does the brain react and learn compared to being shown images which match what was predicted?

That was the question a team, including 91亚色, set out to answer. A long-standing theory suggests the brain learns a predictive model of the world and its internal predictions are updated when incoming sensory data proves them wrong. However, what the researchers found surprised them, says 91亚色 Faculty of Science Associate Professor Joel Zylberberg, co-corresponding author of the newly published paper.

鈥淭esting this theory has always been a challenge,鈥� he says. 鈥淲e needed to be able to measure the top-down signals to the sensory areas of the brain over long periods of time to show how the brain learns new sensory input patterns.鈥�

Using a mouse model, the researchers displayed images of visual patterns over multiple days, then presented other images that violated those patterns, while measuring the brain鈥檚 activity in the visual cortex, where visual information from the retina is processed. The idea was to test how the neurons reacted to the new pattern-violating sensory information.

Several of the researchers, including Zylberberg, are Fellows in the 鈥檚 Learning in Machines and Brains group, which conducted the research as part of the Allen Institute for Brain Science鈥檚 Brain Observatory and its OpenScope program. OpenScope has been compared to an observatory where astronomers work together to study the universe, only this time researchers are sharing data to study the brain.

The measurements were taken at the neurons鈥� distal apical dendrites of the visual cortex, which receive top-down signals, and at their cell bodies, which receive bottom-up signals. They wanted to know if the distal apical dendrites processed visual stimuli differently from their cell bodies when the signals both matched and violated expected patterns.

It turns out, the brain鈥檚 response to image patterns that violate the brain鈥檚 predictions, evolves differently over time when compared to pattern-matching images.

鈥淪urprisingly, the distal apical dendrites responses grew significantly over time becoming increasingly sensitive to inputs that violate the patterns, while the cell bodies lost their initially strong sensitivity,鈥� says Zylberberg, a computational neuroscientist. 鈥淭his finding could offer critical insight into sensory computation and predictive learning in the brain.鈥�

The finding suggests that the pattern-violating stimuli drove the changes and different forms of pattern-violating stimuli may elicit different kinds of prediction errors than expected. It points to a component of the brain that could have a distinct and important role in sensory learning not previously known.

鈥淜nowing how the brain processes new visual sensory information is important for developing better machine learning algorithms and applications which could hopefully help restore people鈥檚 sight in the future,鈥� says Zylberberg.

The paper, , was published today in JNeurosci, the Journal of Neuroscience.

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