UHBRAIN seminar

Psilocybin action on learning mechanisms and neuronal growth

Professor Samuel S.-H. Wang from the Princeton Neuroscience Institute, Princeton University, will give a talk in the UHBRAIN seminar series

Sam Wang (https://wanglab.scholar.princeton.edu/about) is a professor of neuroscience at Princeton University. His lab investigates how brains learn from sensory experience, in adulthood and development, with relevance for autism. His neuroscience research has been recognized and supported by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, the W.M.Keck Foundation, the Rita Allen Foundation, the Nancy Lurie Marks Family Foundation, and the McKnight Foundation. He is also a member of the New Jersey Governor’s Council on Medical Research and Treatment of Autism. He is also the author of two popular books, Welcome to Your Brain: Why You Lose Your Car Keys But Never Forget How to Drive and Other Puzzles of Everyday Life (2008), which was named Young Adult Science Book of the Year by the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and Welcome to Your Child’s Brain: How the Mind Grows from Conception to College (2011). The two books are available in over 20 languages. Dr. Wang is also the founder of Princeton Election Consortium.

Selected publications:

Oleire Uquillas, E. Sefik, J. Seidlitz, J. Merriman, V. Zhang, R. Romero-Garcia, V. Warrier, R.A.I. Bethlehem, A. Alexander-Bloch, J. Sepulcre, S.S.-H. Wang, P. Vannini, J. Gomez (2026). Cerebellar senescence is spatially heterogeneous and serves a protective role in cognitive aging. Nature Neuroscience, accepted.

C.A. Zimmerman, S.S. Bolkan, A. Pan-Vazquez, B. Wu, E.F. Keppler, J.B. Meares-Garcia, E.M. Guthman, R.N. Fetcho, B. McMannon, J. Lee, A.T. Hoag, L.A. Lynch, S.R. Janarthanan, J.F. López Luna, A.G. Bondy, A.L. Falkner, S.S.-H. Wang, I.B. Witten (2025) A neural mechanism for learning from delayed postingestive feedback. Nature 642, pages700–709.  https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-025-08828-z.

T.J. Pisano, Z.M. Dhanerawala, M. Kislin, D. Bakshinskaya, E. Engel, J. Lee, N.L. de Oude, K.U. Venkataraju, J.L. Verpeut, H.-J. Boele, and S.S.-H. Wang (2021) Parallel organization of cerebellar pathways to sensorimotor, associative, and modulatory forebrain. Cell Reports, 36:109721.

A. Giovannucci*, A. Badura*, B. Deverett, F. Najafi, T.D. Pereira, Z. Gao, I. Ozden, A.D. Kloth, E. Pnevmatikakis, L. Paninski, C.I. De Zeeuw, J.F. Medina, S.S.-H. Wang (2017) Cerebellar granule cells acquire a widespread predictive feedback signal during motor learning. Nature Neuroscience, 20(5):727-734.