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The Feindel Brain and Mind Seminar Series will advance the vision of Dr. William Feindel (1918–2014), Former Director of the Neuro (1972–1984), to constantly bridge the clinical and research realms. The talks will highlight the latest advances and discoveries in neuropsychology, cognitive neuroscience, and neuroimaging.

Speakers will include scientists from across The Neuro, as well as colleagues and collaborators locally and from around the world. The series is intended to provide a virtual forum for scientists and trainees to continue to foster interdisciplinary exchanges on the mechanisms, diagnosis and treatment of brain and cognitive disorders.

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How Shared Interpretations and Experiences Shape Event Processing, Neural Representations, and Memory

Abstract: The event segmentation theory posits that mental models, referred to as event models, are constructed from prior knowledge and incoming perceptual information to interpret and predict ongoing experiences. When these event models generate a significant prediction error, they are replaced by a more appropriate model, resulting in event segmentation—the chunking of continuous experiences into discrete events. Alex Barnett's research explores how shared knowledge affects the segmentation of experiences, cortical representational patterns, and memory. Findings indicate that prior knowledge in a domain is associated with better memory and more synchronized event segmentation in individuals with high domain knowledge compared to those with low domain knowledge. Additionally, the research demonstrates that as individuals accumulate shared knowledge and experiences, brain synchrony during event encoding increases across a broad set of cortical regions, including sensory, attentional, and higher-order networks. Furthermore, people who recall events more similarly tend to exhibit shared multivariate patterns in the posterior medial cortex. These experiments provide insights into how prior knowledge and experience are utilized by the brain, influencing the way events are experienced and recalled.

Alex Barnett

Assistant Professor, The Neuro, ºÚÁϲ»´òìÈ University

Alex Barnett completed his B.Sc., M.A. and PhD at the University of Toronto at Toronto Western Hospital investigating the neural underpinnings of cognition in temporal lobe epilepsy. He completed his postdoctoral training at the University of California, Davis before starting a faculty position at the University of Toronto. He is now an assistant professor at The Neuro (Montreal Neurological Institute-Hospital). Barnett’s research incorporates elements of systems neuroscience, cognitive psychology, and clinical neuropsychology in creative ways to expand our understanding of episodic memory. His research explores how neocortical networks in the brain interact with the hippocampus to support the formation, retrieval, and transformation of episodic memories and how this process is altered in temporal lobe epilepsy and other neurological disorders.