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The 37th Karger Workshop in Evolutionary Neuroscience and the 44th Annual Meeting of the JB Johnston Club will be held at UC San Diego Park & Market (parkandmarket.ucsd.edu) on the 13th & 14th of November 2025. The 2025 Karger workshop is organized by Menno Witter, Daniel Reznik and Kari Hoffman and is entitled: "Evolution of cortico-hippocampal circuitry in vertebrates"
Episodic memory is one of the most complex cognitive functions allowing humans to recall the past, to orient in the present and to plan for the future. Multiple lines of research argue that episodic memory is not uniquely human and is present in other species as well. At the neural level, episodic memory critically depends on the hippocampus and its interactions with the rest of the cerebral cortex. Intriguingly, in mammals, the hippocampal region largely preserved its gross anatomical structure and functional properties throughout 200 million years of evolution. This notion is particularly striking given the dramatic divergence in the size, structural differentiation and functional specialization of the cerebral cortex in the mammalian lineage. Other vertebrates, such as fish and birds, have as well a brain structure that is structurally and functionally considered a homologue of the mammalian hippocampus. While previous research aimed to understand the differences in animal mnemonic cognition by focusing on the levels of differentiation within the cerebral cortex, one of the understudied factors potentially underpinning the way different species perform hippocampus-dependent tasks might be the type of information processed by the hippocampus. We thus suggest that the hippocampus in all species performs similar computations albeit on dramatically different types of input. In this workshop, we aim to leverage the contrast between the preserved hippocampus and the intriguing diversification of cortex by bringing together experts working on hippocampal connectivity and function in different vertebrate species to provide a large-scale view on episodic memory. To examine the role of the hippocampus and associated neocortex across vertebrate taxa, their functional properties and homologues in birds and fish will be discussed. The goal of the workshop is to showcase the insights from adopting a cross-species perspective on studying the link between anatomy and function of the hippocampus and neocortex in support of episodic memories. Schedule of Talks: link Speakers: Loreta Medina - Evolution of the hippocampal complex in relation to other pallial divisions Cosme Salas - Relational memory functions of the hippocampal pallium in reptiles and teleost fish Anat Barnea - The effects of light pollution on brain plasticity in birds: evidence for possible resilience of the hippocampus Sarah Woolley - The role of auditory memory in songbird vocal communication circuits and behavior Onur Güntürkün - The pigeon hippocampus and its strange ways to interact with the pallium Menno Witter - Comparative structure of cortico-entorhino-hippocampal networks Kari Hoffman - Functional organization of content across hippocampal-cortical circuits in primates Daniel Reznik - The evolutionary trajectory of hippocampal-cortical circuitry in humans Special Invited Guest: Christian Doeller, Cognitive maps for navigation and remembering, Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences, Germany, Hotel Room Block: We are pleased to announce that we have been able to secure a hotel room block for our JBJC members at Hotel Indigo in the Gaslamp district. To make use of these limited room block please go ahead and Please use the reservation weblink below to book your stay directly with the hotel. https://book.passkey.com/go/JBJohnstonClub2025 We look forward to seeing you all in San Diego! Call for Karger Workshop Proposals 2026: Are you interested in submitting a workshop proposal for our next Karger Workshop?If so read our call for proposals for more insight on the process and the benefits to organizing a workshop. PROPOSAL FOR 38th KARGER WORKSHOP IN EVOLUTIONARY NEUROSCIENCE The deadline for submission of proposals is April 30th, 2026. Through the generosity of the Karger Publishing Company (publishers of Brain, Behavior and Evolution), the Karger workshop for Evolutionary Neuroscience has been held for 36 years in conjunction with the annual J.B. Johnston Club meeting. These workshops provide a forum for researchers to meet and discuss a single broad topic in the field of evolutionary and comparative neuroscience. The workshops and the subsequent special issues of Brain, Behavior and Evolution (see below) provide a valuable tool for disseminating information among both established scientists and students newly arrived in the field. Any member of the J.B. Johnston Club may propose a Karger Workshop. Please use the following guidelines when planning your workshop. Responsibilities of the organizer(s): 1. Develop a topic that would be appealing to a large number of comparative or evolutionary neuroscientists, even if the topic is outside the main research interest of most JBJC members. 2. Karger Workshops generally have 6 - 8 presenters, with about 45 minutes each for their talk, questions and a limited discussion. The organizers should choose distinguished researchers whose contributions to the Workshop will add breadth and insight into the selected topic. We hope to have speakers from different career stages, different countries, different genders, and different ethnicities to promote a vibrant interaction. 3. One of the presenters should be an internationally recognized scholar in the field of the chosen topic who does not usually attend the annual JBJC meeting. This person is designated the Special Invited Guest and will be expected to speak not only at the Karger Workshop, but also the next day at the regular J.B. Johnston Club meeting. 4. The organizer, in the role of Guest Editor, will be responsible for collecting and editing the subsequent papers before they are sent to the Editor-in-Chief for publication in Brain, Behavior and Evolution. The organizers will also need to write a preface to the special issue. Benefits to the organizer(s) and speakers: 1. One night stay at the JBJC hotel, compliments of the Karger Publishing Company. 2. All meals the day of the Karger Workshop, including a formal dinner that evening. 3. Publication of the workshop papers in Brain, Behavior and Evolution. Benefits to the Special Invited Guest: 1. Three nights stay in the JBJC hotel, compliments of the Karger Publishing Company and the J.B. Johnston Club. 2. Economy airfare and ground transportation from home to the hotel. 3. All meals the day of the Karger Workshop, including a formal dinner that evening. 4. Publication of the workshop papers in Brain, Behavior and Evolution. Proposal Instructions: If you are interested in organizing a workshop, please email the following information to the Program Committee Chair, Andrew Iwanuik ([email protected]) by April 30th, 2026: 1) Title or general topic of the workshop 2) Names and email addresses of the suggested speakers and preliminary talk titles. Please state whether you have already contacted the speakers to confirm their interest and availability. 3) Your name, email address, mailing address, and phone number 4) Any other pertinent information (1 page maximum) PREVIOUS WORKSHOPS (published in BB&E the year after they were held): 1989: Comparative Neurobiology: Problems for a New Decade – organized by R. G. Northcutt 1990: Homology as a Tool in Neuroscience – organized by H. Baker 1991: Effectors, Behavior, and Evolution – organized by C. Carr 1992: The Neurobiology of Reproductive Behavior – organized by L. E. Muske and L. S. Demski 1993: Avian Auditory-Vocal Motor Interfaces – organized by S. E. Brauth and W.S. Hall 1994: Evolution of the Forebrain – organized by M. R. Braford, Jr. 1995: Neurobiology of Jawless Fishes – organized by C. M. Rovainen 1996: Evolution of Vertebrate Sensory Systems – organized by R.R. Fay and A. N. Popper 1997: Development and Evolution – organized by T. J. Neary and B. Fritzsch 1998: Steroid Action on Brain and Behavior – organized by J. G. Dulka 1999: The Diversity of Mammalian Cerebral Cortex – organized by T. M. Preuss 2000: Social Modulation of Brain and Behavior – organized by M. Grober 2001: Evolutionary Convergence as a Tool in Neuroscience – organized by H. L. Eisthen and K. C. Nishikawa 2002: Perspectives on the Evolution of Cognition - organized by Lainy B. Day and Alice S. Powers 2003: The Development of Vertebrate Sensory Organs - organized by R. Glenn Northcutt 2004: Hindbrain Evolution, Development, and Organization - organized by Eduardo Rosa-Molinar and Michael B. Pritz 2005: Evolution of Neurotrophic Factors - organized by Christopher S. von Bartheld 2006: Plasticity and Diversity in Behavior and Brain Function - organized by Ovind Overli 2007: Neurobiological Lessons Learned from Comparative Studies - organized by Hans A. Hofmann and Caroly A. Shumway 2008: Forebrain Evolution in Fishes - organized by R. Glenn Northcutt and Mario F. Wulliman 2009: Vision with an Eye to Ecology - organized by Andrew Iwaniuk and Douglas Wylie 2010: Diversity in Cortical Organization - organized by Jon H. Kaas 2011: The Nervous System of Cartilaginous Fishes – organized by Kara E. Yopak 2012: Evolution of Brain Complexity and Animal Minds – organized by Leo Demski 2013: The Problem of Human Brain Evolution: Integrating Diverse Approaches – organized by Chet Sherwood 2014: The Neurobiology and Behavior of Predators and Prey – organized by Ken and Liz Catania 2015: The Role of Adult Neurogenesis in Plasticity: Evolutionary Insights – organized by Alice Powers 2016: The Hippocampus: questions of homology – organized by Anat Barnea and Tom Smulders 2017: From Fossils to Function: Integrative and Diverse Approaches to Vertebrate Evolutionary Neuroscience—organized by Ashley Morhardt 2018: The Role of Species Diversity in Neuroscience—organized by Georg Striedter and Todd Preuss 2019: Evolution of Natural and Drug-Sensitive Reward in Addiction—organized by Robert Huber 2020: Heterochrony in comparative neurodevelopment —organized by Drew Halley (Online meeting) 2021: JBJC Spring virtual symposium : Peace through herpetofauna: A tribute to Walt Wilczynski (Online meeting) 2021: Conservation, divergence and convergence in amygdala evolution - organized by Loreta Medina and Ester Desfelis (Online meeting) 2022: Exaptation, Maladaptation and evolution of the nervous systems - organized by Daphne Soares with assistance by Grace Capshaw 2023: The evolution of diversification of glia across invertebrates and vertebrates - organized by Carmen Falcone 2024: Mapping neurobiological diversity - organized by Daniel Miller & Kathrine Bryant 2025: Evolution of cortico-hippocampal circuitry in vertebrates - organized by Menno Witter, Daniel Reznik & Kari Hoffman |
