Connectionists: Brain-Mind Institute, Summer School and International Conference on Brain-Mind (ICBM)

[Juyang Weng]

Brain-Mind Institute
Summer School
Mon. June 25 - Fri., August 3, 2012
and
International Conference on Brain-Mind (ICBM)
Sat. July 14, 2012 - Sun. July 15, 2012
Michigan State University, East Lansing, Michigan USA
http://www.brain-mind-institute.org/

Collectively, the human race seems ready to unveil one of its last 
mysteries — how its brain-mind works at computational depth. The term 
computational depth here means not only qualitative mechanisms, but also 
quantitative mechanisms that are sufficient to give rise to major 
brain-mind functions, from earlier animals, to humans, to machines, and 
to group intelligence thereof, through computation. From the knowledge 
required for a recently synthesized grand computational picture of the 
brain-mind and many other partial computational pictures, it seems that 
the research community urgently needs a large number of leaders who have 
sufficient knowledge in at least six disciplines conjunctively — 
Biology, Neuroscience, Psychology, Computer Science, Electrical 
Engineering, and Mathematics (6 disciplines). Such knowledge is further 
needed for understanding brain-mind, either natural or artificial, in 
many scales that the Institute is interested in — genes, cells, 
circuits, streams, brain ways, experiences, behaviors, societies, and 
diseases.

While increasingly more researchers are converging to this high-impact 
brain-mind subject, they face great challenges: The existing educational 
and research infrastructure was not meant for this brain-mind scale (6 
disciplines). The Brain-Mind Institute (BMI) provides an integrated 
6-discipline academic and research infrastructure for future leaders of 
brain-mind research. The BMI is a new kind of institute, not limited by 
boundaries of disciplines, organizations, and geographic locations.

Important dates:
Full papers: by Sunday, March 4, 2012
Abstracts: by Sunday, March 11, 2012
Course applications: by Sunday, March 18, 2012
Advance registration: Sunday, April 15, 2012
Instructor applications: Sunday, April 22, 2012

Keynote Talks

Toward an Integrated Science of Decision Making: Bridging Levels of 
Analysis with the Leaky Competing Accumulator Model
James L. McClelland
Lucie Stern Professor and Chair, Department of Psychology
Director, Center for Mind, Brain, and Computation
Stanford University
Abstract:
http://www.brain-mind-institute.org/jay-mcclelland-summer-2012.html

Foundations and New Paradigms of Brain Computing: Attention, Search, 
Recognition, Oscillations, Working Memory, Speech Perception, Social 
Cognition
Stephen Grossberg
Wang Professor of Cognitive and Neural Systems
Professor of Mathematics, Psychology, and Biomedical Engineering
Director, Center for Adaptive Systems
Boston University
Abstract:
http://www.brain-mind-institute.org/stephen-grossberg-summer-2012.html

More to be added ...

Committees: http://www.brain-mind-institute.org/committees.html

Call for Papers and Abstracts

BMI Internal Conference on Brain-Mind (ICBM) calls for papers in all 
subjects related to brain-mind to be presented during July 14-15, 2012. 
The subjects of interest include, but not limited to:

1. Genes: inheritance, evolution, species, environments, nature vs. 
nurture, and evolution vs. development.
2. Cells: cell models, cell learning, cell signaling, tissues, 
morphogenesis, and tissue development.
3. Circuits: features, clustering, self-organization, cortical circuits, 
Brodmann areas, representation, classification, and regression.
4. Streams: pathways, intra-modal attention, vision, audition, touch 
(including kinesthetics, temperature), smell, and taste.
5. Brain ways: neural networks, brain-mind architecture, inter-modal 
attention, multisensory integration, and neural modulation 
(punishment/serotonin/pain, reward/dopamine/pleasure/sex, 
novelty/acetylcholine/norepinephrine, higher emotion).
6. Experiences: learning, perceptual development, cognitive development, 
value development, functions of genome.
7. Behaviors: actions, motor development, concept learning, abstraction, 
languages, decision making, reasoning, and creativity.
8. Societies: joint attention, swarm intelligence, group intelligence, 
genders, races, science of organization, constitutions, and laws.
9. Diseases: depression, ADD/ADHD, drug addiction, dyslexia, autism, 
schizophrenia, Alzheimer's disease, Parkinson's disease, vision loss, 
hearing loss, and prosthetics.

For more detail, visit http://www.brain-mind-institute.org/