Panel Discussion :"A Dialogue between Editor and Reviewers"

Prof. Busch is the head of the Quantum Systems Unit at OIST, where theoretical research into the quantum properties of ultracold gases is carried out. He obtained his PhD in 2000 from the University of Innsbruck (Austria), spent his post-doc time in Denmark and Ireland, before becoming a PI at University College Cork (Ireland) in 2006 and moving to OIST in 2012. He has authored about 100 peer-reviewed publications and worked on the Editorial Board of Scientific Reports for two years.

Prof. Doya took BS in 1984, MS in 1986, and Ph.D. in 1991 at U. Tokyo. He became a research associate at U. Tokyo in 1986, U. C. San Diego in 1991, and Salk Institute in 1993. He joined Advanced Telecommunications Research International (ATR) in 1994 and became the head of Computational Neurobiology Department, ATR Computational Neuroscience Laboratories in 2003. In 2004, he was appointed as the Principal Investigator of Neural Computation Unit, Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology (OIST) and started Okinawa Computational Neuroscience Course (OCNC) as the chief organizer. As OIST established itself as a graduate university in 2011, he became a Professor and served as the Vice Provost for Research. He serves as the Co-Editor in Chief of Neural Networks since 2008 and a board member of Japanese Neural Network Society (JNNS) and Japan Neuroscience Society (JNSS). He served as the Program Co-Chair of International Conference on Neural Information Processing (ICONIP) in 2007 and 2016, the Program Chair of JNSS meeting in 2010, and the General Chair of JNNS meeting in 2011. He received Tsukahara Award and JSPS Award in 2007 and MEXT Prize for Science and Technology in 2012, and joined the College of Fellows of International Neural Network Society in 2013. He lead the MEXT project “Prediction and Decision Making” from 2011 to 2016 and currently leads a new MEXT project “Artificial Intelligence and Brain Science”. He is interested in understanding the functions of basal ganglia and the cortical circuit based on the theory of reinforcement learning and Bayesian inference.

Charles Yokoyama is the Director of Research Administration for the RIKEN Brain Science Institute, Japan’s flagship neuroscience center. As a researcher, he investigated   synaptic communication in the brain. He joined the research journal Neuron in the Cell Press unit of Elsevier as a Senior Editor where he managed peer review, publication, and post-publication science communication. At RIKEN he oversees research development and communication, and pursues transformative innovation in the scientific ecosystem.

Dr. Tomoyuki Takahashi 1975, Ph.D. from Tokyo Medical and Dental University：Identification of substance P as sensory transmitter. 1977-1980 Postdoc in UCL (B Katz lab): Excitation-Ca signal coupling. 1980-1993, Staff scientist in Kyoto University (i) Spinal cord synaptic physiology, (ii) Functional expression of cloned ion channels, in collaboration with Numa’s group, (iii) Development of slice-patch-clamp technique in collaboration with B Sakmann. 1993-2007, Prof in University of Tokyo: Synaptic transmission mechanism in brain slices. 2007-2015, Prof in Doshisha University/adjunct Prof in OIST (2007-2015): Regulatory mechanism of transmitter release. 2015-Prof in OIST: Synaptic vesicle recycling mechanism. Reviewing editor in Science (1995-2007), J Physiol (2002-2009), Eur J Neurosci (2001-2006).