No subject
eytan ruppin
ruppin at cs.UMD.EDU
Sun Oct 30 13:48:30 EST 1994
Workshop Announcement
NEURAL MODELING OF COGNITIVE AND BRAIN DISORDERS
Sponsors:
Institute for Advanced Computer Studies, University of Maryland
Dept. of Neurology, University of Maryland School of Medicine
Center for the Neural Basis of Cognition, Carnegie Mellon and
Pittsburgh Universities
Center for Neural and Cognitive Studies, University of Maryland
(Additional sponsors are currently being sought.)
A workshop on Neural Modeling of Cognitive and Brain Disorders will be
held June 8 - 10, 1995 at the University of Maryland, College Park, just
outside of Washington, DC. The focus of this meeting will be on the
lesioning of neural network models to study disorders in neurology,
neuropsychology and psychiatry, such as Alzheimer's disease, amnesia,
aphasia, depression, acquired dyslexia, epilepsy, schizophrenia, and stroke.
These models attempt to explain how specific pathological neuroanatomical
and neurophysiological changes can result in various clinical manifestations,
and they investigate the functional organization of the symptoms that result
from specific brain pathologies.
The prospects and challenges of modeling brain disorders have
recently attracted an increasing number of researchers with different
backgrounds, such as physicians, psychologists and computer scientists.
This, together with the inherent multidisciplinary nature of
brain modeling research, has motivated the goals of this workshop:
To evaluate current achievements critically, to discuss
the possibilities for further advancement, and to identify
brain disorders and cognitive phenomena that may be studied
computationally.
To examine methodological modeling issues, such as limitations
of the networks currently employed, and the required
computational properties of future models.
To make the material presented at the workshop available to
the wider audience of researchers interested in studying neural
models of brain disorders.
A Proceedings of abstracts will be compiled, and the production of a book of
contributed chapters based on the workshop is under consideration.
CALL FOR ABSTRACTS
Individuals wishing to present a poster related to any aspect of the
workshop's themes should submit an abstract describing the nature of their
presentation. The single page submission should include title, author(s),
contact information (address and email/fax), and abstract. One inch margins
and a typesize of at least 10 points should be used. Abstracts will be
reviewed by the Program Committee; those accepted will be published in the
workshop proceedings. Six copies of the camera-ready abstract should be
mailed TO ARRIVE by February 1, 1995 to James A. Reggia, Dept. of Computer
Science, A.V. Williams Bldg., University of Maryland, College Park, MD
20742 USA.
PRELIMINARY PROGRAM
Each workshop session will be focused on specific disorders and composed of
four invited presentations followed by a critical commentary and a general
discussion.
Thursday, June 8
----------------
8:30 AM: Welcome and Overview
9:00 AM: Alzheimer's Disease and Memory Disorders
Chair and Discussant: Steven Small (University of Pittsburgh)
James McClelland (Carnegie Mellon University) -
Complementary learning systems in hippocampus and neocortex
Michael Hasselmo (Harvard University) - Runway synaptic modification
models of cortex: implications for the pathology of Alzheimer's disease
David Horn (Tel-Aviv University, Israel) - Synaptic deletion and
compensation in Alzheimer's disease: a computational study
Martha Farah (University of Pennsylvania) -
Computational models of semantic memory impairment
Noon: Lunch Break
1:30 PM: Epilepsy
Chair and Discussant: Michael Rogawski (National Institutes of Health)
Roger Traub (IBM Watson) - Modeling synchronized neuronal oscillations
in epilepsy
John Rinzel (National Institutes of Health) - Reduced, cell-based
models for epilepsy
Bill Lytton (University of Wisconsin) - Modeling epilepsy and seizure
spread
Mayank Mehta (University of Arizona) - A neural network model for
kindling of focal epilepsy
4:30 PM: Reception
Friday, June 9
--------------
9:00 AM: Stroke and Functional Effects of Focal Lesions
Chair and Discussant: Barry Gordon (Johns Hopkins University)
John Pearson (David Sarnoff Research Center) - The effects of focal
deafferentation on cortical reorganization
James Reggia (University of Maryland) - Lesioning cortical maps: a
model of stroke in sensory and motor cortices
Manfred Spitzer (University of Heidelberg, Germany) - A neural network
model of phantom limbs
Eytan Ruppin (Tel-Aviv University, Israel) - The functional effects of
focal lesions in associative memory networks
Noon: Lunch Break
1:30 PM: Aphasia and Acquired Dyslexia
Chair and Discussant: Rita Berndt (University of Maryland)
Gary Dell (University of Illinois) - Lesioning a connectionist model of
sentence processing to simulate naming errors in aphasia
Max Coltheart (Macquarie University, Australia) - Simulation of acquired
dyslexia by DRC, a computational realization of a dual-route reading model
Karalyn Patterson (MRC Appl. Psych. Unit, Cambridge) - Connections and dis-
connections: acquired surface dyslexia in a connectionist model of reading
David Plaut (Carnegie Mellon University) - Connectionist modeling of the
breakdown and recovery of reading via meaning
4:30 PM: Dinner Break
7:00 PM: POSTER SESSION
Saturday, June 10
-----------------
9:00 AM: Schizophrenia, Frontal and Affective Disorders
Chair and Discussant: Jonathan Cohen (Carnegie Mellon University &
University of Pittsburgh)
Ralph Hoffman (Yale University) - Modeling schizophrenic positive
symptoms using attractor and backpropagation networks
David Servan-Schreiber (University of Pittsburgh) - Modeling cognitive
deficits in schizophrenia: neuromodulation of prefrontal cortex
Dan Levine (University of Texas at Arlington) - Functional deficits of
frontal lobe lesions
Joanne Luciano and Michael Cohen (Boston University) - A neural model
of major depression
Noon: Lunch Break
1:30 PM: Commentary: James McClelland (Carnegie Mellon University)
2:00 PM: General Discussion
A brief commentary will be followed by a general discussion of where we
are and where we want to go from here. Among the issues to be considered
are the successes and limitations of current models of neurological,
neuropsychological and psychiatric disorders. What common methods have
been identified? How can models of this sort be validated, and at what
level of detail should they be formulated? What topics seem amenable to
future neural modeling, and what are barriers to further progress in this
field? Is there sufficient interest in contributing to a book on the subject
of this workshop? Finally, feedback on the workshop format and content will
be solicited, and the interest and usefulness of holding similar workshops
or more formal conferences in the future will be assessed.
4:30 PM: Adjournment
------
Travel Fellowships:
------------------
Funding has been requested for a few fellowships to offset travel cost of
students, postdocs, and/or residents. Further details will be forthcoming.
Program Committee:
-----------------
Rita Berndt (Maryland), Barry Gordon (Johns Hopkins),
Michael Hasselmo (Harvard), Ralph Hoffman (Yale), Joanne Luciano (Boston),
Jay McClelland (Carnegie Mellon), Al Nigrin (American),
David Plaut (Carnegie Mellon), James Reggia (Maryland),
Eytan Ruppin (Tel-Aviv), and Stanley Tuhrim (Mount Sinai).
Registration or Further Information:
-----------------------------------
To receive registration materials (distributed most likely
in January/February), please send your name, address, email
address, phone number and fax number to
Johanna Weinstein
UMIACS
A. V. Williams Bldg.
University of Maryland
College Park, MD 20742 USA
Tel.: (301)405-6722
Fax: (301)314-9658
email: johanna at umiacs.umd.edu
Further questions about conference administration, hotel reservations,
etc. should also be directed to Ms. Weinstein.
For questions about the workshop technical/scientific content or
absract submissions, please contact
Eytan Ruppin
Dept. of Computer Science
A.V. Williams Bldg.
University of Maryland
College Park MD 20742 USA
Tel.: (301) 405-2709
Fax: (301)405-6707
email: ruppin at cs.umd.edu
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