Vincent Costa, Ph.D.Assistant Professor, Division of NeuroscienceOregon National Primate Research CenterOregon Health & Science University Disynaptic motivational circuits regulate decisions to explore or exploit Motivational circuits facilitate reinforcement learning and support computations relevant for solving the explore-exploit dilemma. But it has been difficult to dissect the neural circuits involved in exploration, since these choices rely […]
Hiroyuki Kato, Ph.D.Associate ProfessorDepartment of Psychiatry & Neuroscience CenterUniversity of North Carolina Chapel Hill Sensory Integration along the Auditory Cortical Hierarchy Our brain’s ability to parse overlapping sounds and reconstruct individual perceptual sound objects is essential in navigating acoustically complex environments. Despite ample evidence suggesting the critical roles of higher-order auditory cortices in integrating complex […]
Stefan Mihalas, Ph.D.InvestigatorAllen Institute for Brain Science Computing with complex components: How heterogeneous, nonstationary and noisy neurons and synapses contribute to the brain’s computational power While artificial neural networks have taken inspiration from biological ones, one salient difference exists at the level of components. Artificial networks are generally built with homogeneous, stationary and deterministic neurons […]
Neural Mechanisms Underlying Adult Ocular Dominance Plasticity: Hebbian or Homeostatic? Daniel Tso, PhDAssociate Professor of Neurosurgery,Neuroscience and Physiology,& Ophthalmology and Visual SciencesSUNY Upstate Medical UniversitySyracuse, NY Recent studies in adult humans have shown that short-term deprivation of one eye (STMD, 1-3hrs) dramatically shifts the balance in favor of this eye for over an hour afterwards. […]
Giorgio Ascoli, Ph.D.Distinguished University Professor, Bioengineering Department and Neuroscience ProgramFounding Director, Center for Neural Informatics, Structure, & PlasticityKrasnow Institute for Advanced StudyGeorge Mason University From Neuron Classification to Spiking Neural Network Simulations: Testing the textbook hypotheses of neuroscience with data-driven computational models Faculty Host: Jim Knierim
Value-based cognition: reward, computation, learning and problem-solving Many of our daily decisions are related to value. Choosing between food options, doingmathematic calculations, and learning something new, all of these procedures arelinked to value in different ways. In a series of research, we used neuroimaging (fMRIand MEG) in humans and single-neuron recordings in rhesus macaque monkeys, […]
Reza Shadmehr, Ph.D.Professor, Dept of Biomedical EngineeringJohns Hopkins University A vector calculus for neural computation in the cerebellum: Neurons in the brain are active not just during execution of a behavior, but also before its onset and after its conclusion. The leading theory that explains the meaning of these activities is that of null spaces. […]
Thorsten Kahnt, Ph.D.Chief, Learning and Decision-Making UnitNational Institute on Drug Abuse Orbitofrontal contributions to outcome-guided behavior Research across species has shown that the orbitofrontal cortex (OFC) is critical for decision making. However, it is less clear what exactly the OFC is contributing to this function. I will present work using functional neuroimaging showing that the […]
Robbe Goris, Ph.D.Assistant Professor, Department of Psychology University of Texas at Austin Title: Inference and introspection in the primate visual system To accomplish goals, humans and other animals must infer properties of theenvironment in the face of uncertainty and change. I will discuss psychophysical, physiological,and theoretical work from my lab that interrogates the computational principles […]
Lydia Hopper, Ph.D.Associate Professor, Department of Molecular & Comparative PathobiologyJohns Hopkins School of Medicine Title: Copy cats and aping apes: How social learning aids knowledge acquisition and the transmission of behavioral traditions Abstract: From ants to zebras, animals are influenced by the behavior of others. At the simplest level, social support can reduce neophobia, increasing […]
Daniel Butts, Ph.D.Professor, Dept of BiologyThe University of Maryland Cortical processing of high acuity vision When we want to see something, we look at it. Our highest acuity vision is present in the central one degree of our visual field (the fovea), and eye movements direct the fovea to regions of interest in the visual […]
Michael Yassa, Ph.D.Associate Dean, Professor, & DirectorUniversity of California, Irvine Episodic Memory, Aging and Alzheimer’s Disease Memory is the sum of who we are. We strive to understand how brains can learn and remember information and in using this knowledge to improve the human condition. In particular, we focus on how our memory abilities change with […]
