Hildelith F. Leyser
Laboratory for Imagination and Executive Functions, McGill University

Asilomar Neuroscience Retreat

The UCSF Neuroscience Retreat at Asilomar was an extraordinary experience from beginning to end. We arrived in San Francisco on Saturday, and on Sunday morning two UCSF students kindly picked us up from the hotel and drove us to the retreat site in Pacific Grove. The journey itself set the tone for the week. The ocean came into view just as the conversation turned to science, and it stayed that way for the next three days: curiosity and openness running in parallel with the landscape.

The retreat began on Sunday afternoon with opening remarks, followed by the first faculty session chaired by Cathryn Cadwell. Talks by Claire Clelland, Prasad Shivalkar, and Biswa Ramani stood out for their precision and clarity. The first-year introductions that followed were lively and creative, showing the range of personalities and projects that make up UCSF’s neuroscience community.

Over the following two days, the program unfolded with an impressive balance of depth and variety. I attended sessions on neurodevelopment and gene regulation chaired by Kristen Berendzen, and systems neuroscience talks that included Kevin Yackle, Vijay Namboodiri, and Dan Mordes. The quality of discussion after each talk was as strong as the presentations themselves. People asked questions that were specific yet generous, often leading to thoughtful exchanges that continued over meals or walks near the beach.

On Sunday evening, we held the poster session and social gathering. I presented my work on social context and exploration–exploitation behaviour in primates, which led to several interesting conversations about methodology and modeling. My colleague Kai (co-awardee of the UCSF exchange award) also presented and received the top prize in the poster competition, which was an exciting moment for the RIKEN contingent!

The retreat was not only about data and presentations. It created an atmosphere of shared learning that continued well into the evenings. There was karaoke, a beach bonfire, and long discussions that blurred the line between science and friendship. When the retreat ended on Tuesday morning, I left feeling inspired to have taken part in something that combined intellectual seriousness with genuine human connection.

Campus Visit

After returning to San Francisco, we spent the following day visiting the UCSF Mission Bay campus. It was the perfect continuation of what had begun at Asilomar. The sense of curiosity that defined the retreat was fully present in the labs and corridors of the university.

I met with researchers working in several different groups, including the Knight Lab, the Nakamura Lab, and the Namboodiri Lab. Conversations moved naturally from detailed methods to broader conceptual questions. I was exceptionally inspired by the Chang Lab, where Eddie Chang’s group studies human communication through neural recordings during natural speech and can restore a sense of agency and self-expression to patients who had lost all hope. I also visited the labs of Mazen Kheirbek and Ritchie Chen, whose work explores emotional regulation and clinical translation. Across all of these meetings, what stood out most was the openness of the researchers and their willingness to share ideas.

The campus itself seemed designed to encourage collaboration. The Mission Bay layout brings together computational, physiological, and clinical approaches within walking distance of one another. The environment made it easy to imagine how my own research might fit into the broader ecosystem of work being done there.

Before leaving California, I had the opportunity to visit Yosemite National Park. The scale and stillness of the place offered a perfect contrast to the intensity of the week. Standing there, it was easy to see why perspective matters in both nature and science.

How the Experience Will Benefit My Career

This experience was significant not only for what I learned but also for how it reshaped the way I think about scientific collaboration. The Asilomar retreat reminded me that science moves forward through conversation as much as through analysis. Presenting my poster and engaging with peers from different subfields helped me clarify how to communicate the broader implications of my work.

The UCSF campus visit reinforced the importance of connecting basic and translational approaches. Seeing how different labs tackle complex problems from complementary angles gave me new ideas for integrating behaviour, computation, and physiology in my own research. The people I met have already become important contacts, and the discussions we began are continuing by email and shared data.

I also came away with a renewed sense of curiosity and confidence. It was inspiring to see a scientific culture that values precision, creativity, and kindness in equal measure. I returned to Japan with a stronger understanding of how my work fits into a global effort to understand the neural basis of adaptation and social behaviour.
The trip to UCSF and the Asilomar Retreat was more than an academic exchange. It was a reminder that research grows from both structure and spontaneity, from the formal presentations and the moments in between. I am deeply grateful to CBS for making this visit possible and for giving me the time to reflect on where I fit in the global community of neuroscientists aiming to make a difference with research and application.