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Program overview

Sunday, 21 SEP 2025
17:00-21:00 Get together party (registration required)
18:00-18:30 Party opening

Monday, 22 SEP 2025
8:30-16:00 Registration open
9:15-9:30 Opening
9:30-12:10 Session 1-2
Lunch break
13:30-16:10 Session 3-4
16:10-16:40 Quick fire talks
16:40-18:30 Poster session 1
18:30-21:30 Wine tasting (social program, registration required)

Tuesday, 23 SEP 2025
8:30-16:00 Registration open
9:30-12:10 Session 5-6
Lunch break
13:30-16:10 Session 7-8
16:10-16:40 Quick fire talks
16:40-18:30 Poster session 2
20:00- Gala dinner (Aula of the Medical School, registration required)


Wednesday, 24 SEP 2025
8:30-12:00 Registration open
9:30-12:10 Session 9-10
Lunch break
13:30-14:30 Business Meeting / Farewell

Scientific program

Monday
9:15-9:30

Opening

9:30-10:40

Session 1 - How it all started – the evolutionary perspective
The Retina Predates the Eye, Tom Baden (University of Sussex, Brighton, UK)
Altered proportions of retinal cell types and distinct visual codes in rodents occupying divergent ecological niches, Annette Allen (University of Manchester, UK)
Towards whole-eye connectomics of larval zebrafish retina, Katarina Moravkova (University of Sussex, Brighton, UK)

10:40-11:00

Coffee break

11:00-12:05

Session 2 - Retinal circuitry 1
Emergence of direction-selective circuits in the postnatal mouse retina, Keisuke Yonehara (National Institute of Genetics, Mishima, Japan)
Decoding Retinal Synaptic Connectivity and Function Through Cell-Surface Proteomics and High-Throughput Calcium Imaging, Eleonora Quiroli (IST, Austria)
Response properties of suppressed-by-contrast cells in the mouse early visual system, Florentyna Deja (University of Tübingen, Germany)

12:10-13:30

Lunch

13:30-14:40

Session 3 - Retinal circuitry 2
Characterization of Retinal Ganglion Cell Types using Intersectional Genetics, Tudor Badea (Transilvania University of Brașov, Romania)
GABA inhibitory feedback to cones is strongest at night in dark and suppressed by light, Stuart Mangel (Ohio State Univ College of Medicine, Columbus, USA)
Rod and cone signaling pathways in normal and diseased retinas, Sam Wu (Baylor College of Medicine, Houston, USA)

14:40-15:00

Coffee break

15:00-16:10

Session 4 - Signaling from the Retina to the Brain 1
Subcortical processing of salient stimuli, Gioia De Franceschi (VIB, Leuven, Belgium)
Retinotopic organisation of dLGN-projecting ipRGCs in the mouse, Abigail Pienaar (University of Manchester, UK)
Pupil size modulation drives retinal activity in mice and shapes human perception, Santiago Rompani (EMBL Rome, Italy)

16:10-16:40

Quick fire talks

16:40-18:30

Poster presentations - Session 1 (P001-P053)

18:30-

Social program (Wine tasting)

Tuesday

9:30-10:40

Session 5 - Signaling from the Retina to the Brain 2
How is the visual message from the retina altered by an animal’s behavior?, Hiroki Asari (EMBL Rome, Italy)
Dendritic Architecture Enables de Novo Computation of Salient Motion in the Superior Colliculus, Norma Kühn (Neuro-Electronics Research Flanders, Leuven, Belgium)
Linking Retinal Circuit Function to the Optomotor Response, Patrício Simões (University of Sussex, Brighton, UK)

10:40-11:00

Coffee break

11:00-12:05

Session 6 - Primate retina
Topography and connectivity of bipolar and ganglion cells in the human retina, Ulrike Grünert (The University of Sydney, Australia)
Conserved Circuits for Direction Selectivity in the Primate Retina, Sara Patterson (University of Rochester Medical Center, Rochester, NY, USA)
Color processing is constrained by eye optics in the retina of nocturnal primates, Rémi Baroux (Sorbonne University, INSERM, Paris, France)

12:10-13:30

Lunch

13:30-14:40

Session 7 - New Perspectives, tools, and resources 1
Outer retinal circuits in songbirds as a basis for vision and magnetoreception, Karin Dedek (Carl von Ossietzky Universität Oldenburg, Oldenburg, Germany)
A large-scale dataset of light responses in the mouse ganglion cell layer, Dominic Gonschorek (University of Tübingen, Germany)
Multimodal genetic approach to classifying novel retinal ganglion cell subtypes, Nina Luong (Oregon Health & Science University, Portland, USA)

14:40-15:00

Coffee break

15:00-16:10

Session 8 - New Perspectives, tools, and resources 2
A Complete Spatial Map of Mouse Retinal Ganglion Cells Reveals Density and Gene Expression Specializations, Alon Poleg-Polsky (University of Colorado, USA)
Visual encoding of natural images by retinal ganglion cells in optogenetically modified retinas, Varsha Ramakrishna (University Medical Center Göttingen (UMG), Germany)
Integrative Analysis of Retinal Circuitry: Linking Morphology, Function, and Classification in a Large-Scale EM Dataset, Eyewire II consortium (see Booklet for details)

16:10-16:40

Quick fire talks

16:40-18:30

Poster presentations - Session 2 (P054-P106)

20:00-

Gala dinner

Wednesday

9:30-10:40

Session 9 - Retinal models, artificial vision
Towards integrated models of retinal circuits, Philipp Berens (Hertie Institute for AI in Brain Health, Tübingen, Germany)
Building a theory of sensory coding for active behavior, Wiktor Młynarski (LMU Munich, Germany)
Closed loop active learning of sensory neurons responses using Gaussian Processes, Pietro Zamberlan (Sorbonne University, Paris, France)

10:40-11:00

Coffee break

11:00-12:05

Session 10 - Retinal Degeneration, Regeneration and Diseases
Eye as a Window to the Brain, Lajos Csincsik (Queen’s University Belfast, UK)
Cone Protection in Retinitis Pigmentosa via Pharmacological Modulation of Retinal Inflammation and Metabolic Support, Enrica Strettoi (CNR Neuroscience Institute, Pisa, Italy)
Induced pluripotent stem cell derived-Retinal Pigment Epithelium of AMD displays physiologically relevant voltage-gated sodium channel expression, Gerrit Hilgen (Northumbria University, UK)

12:10-13:30

Lunch

13:30-14:30

Business meeting

Mobirise