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SUMMARY:BMI Seminar // Mark M. Churchland - From spikes to factors: unders
 tanding large-scale neural computations
DTSTART:20230406T140000
DTEND:20230406T150000
DTSTAMP:20260916T064636Z
UID:630c482156b3693e0bb6bcaf584dff51b2a037370f21f83eaa6f43a8
CATEGORIES:Conferences - Seminars
DESCRIPTION:Mark M. Churchland\, Columbia University\, New York\, USA\nExc
 eptionally on Thursday at 2 PM! \n\nIt is widely accepted that human cogni
 tion is the product of spiking neurons. Yet even for basic cognitive funct
 ions\, such as the ability to make decisions or prepare and execute a volu
 ntary movement\, the gap between spikes and computation is vast. Only for 
 very simple circuits and reflexes can one explain computations neuron-by-n
 euron and spike-by-spike. This approach becomes infeasible when neurons ar
 e numerous the flow of information is recurrent. To understand computation
 \, one thus requires appropriate abstractions. An increasingly common abst
 raction is the neural ‘factor’. Factors are central to many explanatio
 ns in systems neuroscience. Factors provide a framework for describing com
 putational mechanism\, and offer a bridge between data and concrete models
 . Yet there remains some discomfort with this abstraction\, and with any a
 ttempt to provide mechanistic explanations above that of spikes\, neurons\
 , cell-types\, and other comfortingly concrete entities. I will explain wh
 y\, for many networks of spiking neurons\, factors are not only a well-def
 ined abstraction\, but are critical to understanding computation mechanist
 ically. Indeed\, factors are as real as other abstractions we now accept: 
 pressure\, temperature\, conductance\, and even the action potential itsel
 f. I use recent empirical results to illustrate how factor-based hypothese
 s have become essential to the forming and testing of scientific hypothese
 s. I will also show how embracing factor-level descriptions affords remark
 able power when decoding neural activity for neural engineering purposes.\
 n 
LOCATION:SV 1717 https://plan.epfl.ch/?room==SV%201717 https://epfl.zoom.u
 s/j/62550191552?pwd=OFRDVzBHb0cyVG1wYkxUSFFEMUNPdz09
STATUS:CONFIRMED
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