Connectionists: Special session on "Bayesian models for motor rehabilitation and control" @ICNR2018

[Luca Citi]

INTRODUCTION
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We invite contributions to a special session on "Bayesian models for 
motor rehabilitation and control" at the International Conference on 
NeuroRehabilitation (ICNR2018) that will take place in Pisa (Italy) from 
October 16th to 20th, 2018. This session's aim is to bring together 
scientists working on theoretical models and engineers working on 
rehabilitation and restoration devices.

More information about the special session at: 
http://www.icnr2018.org/special-sessions-2/


ABSTRACT
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Bayesian statistics is a branch of statistics that provides a principled 
way of calculating how prior knowledge can be combined with observations 
in a statistically optimal way. Numerous studies have shown that many 
aspects of human behaviour (e.g. sensorimotor control) are close to 
“Bayes’ optimal”. Learning (or re-learning in the case of 
rehabilitation) can also be seen as the process of updating our priors 
based on new observations. It seems therefore natural to employ such 
models not only to describe neural processes but also to decode them for 
the purpose of improving the effectiveness of rehabilitation or for the 
control of a prosthetic device. From an implementation point of view, 
Bayesian models are also appealing because they may be better suited 
than other techniques for dealing with the smaller data sets that are 
typically available in biomedical engineering applications.

This session’s goal is to promote and showcase cutting edge research in 
modeling human neuromotor control for the purpose of improving 
rehabilitation techniques or designing better control strategies for 
actuated prostheses. In particular, this special session is dedicated to 
understanding the potential benefits and limitations of applying 
Bayesian techniques to such problems. We envision the session will 
provide an interdisciplinary platform bringing together scientists 
working on theoretical models and engineers working on rehabilitation 
and restoration devices. Example topics may include but are not limited 
to: Bayesian model averaging, Markov-Chain Monte Carlo, sequential Monte 
Carlo, dynamic causal modeling, state-space modeling, hierarchical 
Bayesian modeling, non-parametric Bayesian inference, and their 
application to the aforementioned biomedical engineering problems.


SUBMISSION INSTRUCTIONS
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Please submit your 2-page extended abstract through the Easy Chair 
platform (https://easychair.org/conferences/?conf=icnr2018) before May 
15th, 2018.
During the submission process, please select the special session code "SS1".
Abstracts have to be formatted according to the ICNR2018 template, which 
can be downloaded at: http://www.icnr2018.org/call-for-papers
A selection of the contributions will be published on a special issue on 
"IEEE Transactions on Neural Systems and Rehabilitation Engineering".


CONTACTS
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For information on the special session, please contact Luca Citi 
(lciti at essex.ac.uk)
For more general information about ICNR2018, please contact the 
conference organisers at http://www.icnr2018.org/contact/