Please join Bilkent University’s Psychology Department for the visit of Dr Ezgi Gür.
Speaker: Ezgi Gür, University of Manitoba
“Exploring the Timing Ability in Mouse Models: Implications for Ageing, Alzheimer’s Disease, and Autism Spectrum Disorder”
Date: Tuesday, 23 May 2023
Time: 12:30
Room: A130
Abstract:
Time is one of the fundamental dimensions of the world we live in. Therefore, accurate and precise subjective perception of time is crucial to understand the temporal dynamics of an environment and act in an adaptive fashion. Timing is a broad concept that encompasses the estimation of a duration (how long?), prediction of onset and offset of an event (when?), judgement of temporal order (before or after?), or relative duration between events (shorter or longer?). Different systems mediate our ability to track time across varying durations. This talk will focus on interval timing, the ability to perceive durations in the range of seconds to minutes. I will introduce the basic properties of interval timing ability preserved across different species and present my research on interval timing ability in mouse models of ageing, Alzheimer’s disease, and their neurobiological correlates. Finally, I will talk about my recent interest in autism spectrum disorder (ASD), how disruption in timing function can account for some symptoms of ASD and how phenotyping of cognitive functions in the context of timing using various mouse models of ASD could provide promising tools for translational research.
About the speaker:
Ezgi Gür is a postdoctoral researcher in the Department of Biological Sciences at the University of Manitoba. She earned her Ph.D. in Psychology from Koç University in 2020, where she taught graduate and undergraduate courses and worked as a postdoctoral researcher for 1.5 years before her current role. She obtained a BS degree in Psychology from Middle East Technical University and an MS degree in Experimental Psychology from Izmir University of Economics. Her primary research interests include interval timing ability, temporal decisions, and neural mechanisms involved in these abilities. In addition, she examines how animals process different magnitude information (time, number, and space) and adapt their behaviour accordingly. In her research, she uses mouse models and employs behavioural experimentation and neuromodulation techniques (i.e., optogenetics) to characterize timing behaviour in different conditions and to understand the role of activity in a specific population of neurons. Currently, she investigates the temporal error monitoring ability of mice and Bayesian integration in a mouse model of autism in the timing context.