NIPS workshop opening

[Terence D. Sanger]

Dear Connectionists,

There has been an unexpected opening in the panelists for the NIPS workshop
described below.  If you would be interested in presenting some of your
work and aiding a rousing discussion, please send me a brief abstract and
description of your current research.  I am most interested in speakers
with background or current research in "wet-science" neurophysiology.

Sorry for the late notice!

				Terry Sanger
				tds at ai.mit.edu

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NIPS*95 Post-Conference Workshop

"Vertebrate Neurophysiology and Neural Networks: Can the teacher learn from
the student?"


Results from neurophysiological investigations continue to guide the
development of artificial neural network models that have been shown to
have wide applicability in solving difficult computational problems. This
workshop addresses the question of whether artificial neural network models
can be applied to understanding neurophysiological results and guiding
further experimental investigations. Recent work on close modelling of
vertebrate neurophysiology will be presented, so as to give a survey of
some of the results in this field. We will concentrate on examples for
which artificial neural network models have been constructed to mimic the
structure as well as the function of their biological counterparts.
Clearly, this can be done at many different levels of abstraction. The goal
is to discuss models that have explanatory and predictive power for
neurophysiology. The following questions will serve as general discussion
topics:

   1. Do artificial neural network models have any relationship to ``real''
	Neurophysiology?

   2. Have any such models been used to guide new biological research? 

   3. Is Neurophysiology really useful for designing artificial networks,
	or does it just provide a vague ``inspiration''? 

   4. How faithfully do models need to address ultrastructural or membrane
	properties of neurons and neural circuits in order to generate
	realistic predictions of function?

   5. Are there any artificial network models that have applicability
	across different regions of the central nervous system devoted to
	varied sensory and motor modalities?

   6. To what extent do theoretical models address more than one of David
	Marr's levels of algorithmic abstraction (general approach,
	specific algorithm, and hardware implementation)?

The workshop is planned as a single day panel discussion including both
morning and afternoon sessions. Two or three speakers per session will be
asked to limit presentations of relevant research to 15 minutes. Each
speaker will describe computational models of different vertebrate regions,
and speakers are encouraged to present an overview of algorithms and
results in a manner that will allow direct comparison between methods.
Intense audience participation is actively encouraged. The intended
audience includes researchers actively involved in neurophysiological
modelling, as well as a general audience that can contribute viewpoints
from different backgrounds within the Neural Networks field.