11:00 am Tuesday, February 23, 2016
Math-Neuro-CS Seminar: Computation Structures in the Brain by Monika Jadi (Salk Institute for Biological Studies) in GDC 2.216
Discovering computational principles that drive information processing in the brain is critical to understanding neural correlates of sensory processing, brain-state and behavior. Structure in the nervous system, from a synapse to networks of neurons, is thought to have functional consequences on information processing in the brain. I will describe my work investigating the structural rules of synaptic signaling in individual neurons. Using biophysically inspired cable theory based models, this work has revealed a novel computational role for suppressive signaling that targets the distal tips of dendrites in post-synaptic neurons. At the network level, I have investigated structural rules of contextual processing, specifically those pertaining to oscillatory activity. Using analytically tractable as well as spiking models , my work proposes a novel mechanism for regulation of cortical oscillations that depends on the relative balance of signaling to subclasses of neurons. Finally, I will describe my recent work on neural correlates of attentive behavior along a cortical column, a canonical structure in the sensory cortex. Using machine-learning techniques, I have found trial-by-trial predictors of attentive behavior that precede the sensory discriminandum as well as the resulting behavioral choice by several seconds. Submitted by
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