CNS 2019 Workshop W13: Integrative Theories of Cortical Function

Wednesday 17th July 2019

28th Annual Computational Neuroscience Meeting (CNS*2019), Barcelona, Spain.

Venue: TBA

Brief Description: Understanding how our brain computes and analyses sensory inputs from our external environment whilst enabling us to experience such rich and varied mental lives is one of the great scientific challenges of the 21st century. An attempt to understand the underlying integrative principles of cortical functions have led to appealing computational theories. In concert with these theories, multiple models have been developed that are implementing cortical computations as diverse as sensory perception, control of voluntary motor activity and high-level cognitive functions. This workshop aims to look at some of the recent advances in development of theories governing these cortical computations, the models implementing those computations, and the experimental evidence that is used to differentiate between models. We plan to foster a dialogue between theoreticians, modellers and experimentalists.

Organizers:

·  Hamish Meffin, National Vision Research Institute, and Department of Optometry & Visual Science, The University of Melbourne, hmeffin@unimelb.edu.au 

·  Anthony N. Burkitt, Department of Electrical and Electronic Engineering, The University of Melbourne, aburkitt@unimelb.edu.au

·  Ali Almasi, National Vision Research Institute of Australia, aalmasi@aco.org.au

 

Program of speakers:

9:30 – 10:50am: Session 1, Chair: Hamish Meffin

•    Sacha van Albada: Bringing together cortical structure and dynamics in large-scaling spiking network models

•    Max Nolte: Cortical reliability amid noise and chaos

 

10:50 – 11:20am: Morning Tea

 

11:20 – 12:40pm: Session 2, Chair: Ali Almasi

•    Alex Reyes: Mathematical structures and operations for representing sound frequency and intensity

•    Anna Levina: Optimization of computational capabilities by poising neuronal systems close to criticality

 

12:40 – 2:50pm: Lunch

 

2:50-4:10pm: Session 3, Chair: Tony Burkitt

•    Yves Fregnac: Role of Horizontal connectivity in contour co-linearity and filling-in prediction in the Primary Visual Cortex

•    Ali Almasi: Feature selectivity and invariance in primary visual cortex

 

4:10 – 4:40pm: Afternoon Tea

 

4:40 – 6:00pm: Session 4, Chair: Hamish Meffin

•    Thomas Parr: The anatomy of (active) inference

•    Anthony N. Burkitt: Predictive coding through time: Real-time temporal alignment of neural activity in neural circuits