CALL FOR POSTERS
The Sixth Annual
DYNAMICAL NEUROSCIENCE
Satellite Symposium
"Beyond Neurons and Synchrony"
Friday and Saturday -- November 6-7, 1998 -- All day, both days
At the Twenty-Eighth Annual Meeting of the Society for Neuroscience
Los Angeles Convention Center, Room 515-A
Los Angeles, California
CALL FOR POSTERS Poster Abstract Deadline: October 1, 1998
With the advent of multiple-single-unit recordings, new imaging technologies
and computerized data collection systems, exceedingly large and complex
datasets become increasingly obtainable. Similarly, numerous data analytic
techniques are currently being used within the Neurosciences, each yielding a
different spin on interpretation of the data. With this large number of
analyses now routinely appearing in the literature it is time to assess the
basic questions upon which our analyses are based and our interpretations are
formulated. This symposium will address theoretical questions facing the
empirical scientist interested in brain dynamics. Topics include: How do we
think about receptive fields in a dynamics context? What replaces the concept
of receptive fields as you look more deeply into the brain? Is the nervous
system really noisy? Can simple stimuli still provide useful information
about brain information processing? Is synchrony essential to higher-order
brain function?
Poster presentation sessions will be held during the afternoon each day of the
symposium. Check the web site for further information about submitting a
poster.
Symposium Organizers: L. Abbott, J. Bower, B. Ermentrout and D. Glanzman
Registration is limited, and advanced registration is required.
You may obtain further information, register, or submit an abstract via the
WWW at: http://numedeon.com/dynamics/
For further information: D. Glanzman, Theoretical and Computational
Neuroscience Research Program Division of Basic and Clinical Neuroscience
Research, NIMH, Rm. 11C-16, 5600 Fishers Ln., Rockville, MD 20857 Telephone:
(301) 443-1576 Fax: (301) 443-4822 E-mail: glanzman@helix.nih.gov
If you are unable to register via the WWW, please contact
Mr. Matt Burdetsky at Capital Meeting Planning, c/o NIMH Symposium on Dynamical
Neuroscience, 3222 Dye Drive, Falls Church, VA 22042 Telephone: (703) 207-1703
Fax: (703) 207-1704 E-mail: matt@cmpinc.net
AGENDA
This year the Dynamical Neuroscience Satellite Symposium is organized around
several current questions in neuronal dynamics and computational neuroscience
which are particularly relevant to current research.
Day One: Do neurons really have receptive fields? Are simple stimuli
adequate to understand the response properties of neurons?
Since the beginning of single-neuron recording, neurobiologists have used the
concept of a receptive field to define the location and/or the type of
stimulus that influences a particular neuron. Typically, these receptive
fields have been determined by repeated presentations of relatively simplified
stimuli (e.g., oriented bars in vision). Over the last several years a number
of experimental and modeling studies have suggested that neuronal responses to
stimuli may be variable, or evolve with time on numerous different time scales
and therefore may not represent a fixed property of a neuron.
Under these conditions, does the original concept of a receptive field still
apply? If response properties are dynamic, does this change the way in which
we have to probe these properties? In particular, can we still assume that
neuronal responses to complex stimuli will be directly related to their
responses to simple stimuli? If not, does this make the analysis of simple
stimuli useful as a measure of brain function?
Invited speakers include: Upinder Bhalla, Yang Dan, David Field, Jack Gallant,
Charlie Gray and Miguel Nicolelis.
Day Two: Does the brain care about spike synchrony, and if not, how does it
code information?
Starting with reports that synchronous oscillations in visual cortex can be
related to stimulus features, there has been great interest in the possible
significance of synchronous firings between neurons. Studies reporting
synchronous activity now range broadly across different brain structures and
sensory-motor systems. Mechanisms ranging from feature binding to attention
(and even consciousness) have been linked to synchronous activity. The
question remains, however, "In what way are synchronous spikes special?" Why
should synchronous firing itself be a special code for the nervous system,
rather than, say, the relative timings of all spikes? On the other hand, if
one proposes that information be conveyed in the timings of each spike then it
is necessary to confront directly the variability typically seen over a single
cell's response to the same stimulus. Historically, this variability has been
interpreted as a kind of intrinsic neuronal coding "noise," and dispensed with
using PST histograms or spike rate measures of response. However, several
recent multi-unit-recording experiments have suggested that the variability
seen in single cells may actually reflect more global coordination of cell
response properties, and not underlying intrinsic noise. In principle, why
should spike train analysis specifically emphasize regular and repeatedly
identifiable features of spike trains, such as their overall rate, or
instances of synchronous activity? Is the nervous system noisy? What are the
alternatives?
Invited speakers include: Alan Gelperin, Gilles Laurent, John Miller, Mike
Shadlen, Bill Skaggs and Malvin Teich.
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Dynamics Symposium web page: http://numedeon.com/dynamics/
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