Connectionists: Final Call: 2/3 June 2010 Spike Train Measure Workshop

[Thomas Wennekers]

   Workshop on Spike Train Measures and Their Applications to Neural Coding

                      2/3 June 2010 in Plymouth/UK

                    http://helen.pion.ac.uk/stm2010

This workshop addresses the central question in Computational Neuroscience 
which aspects of neural firing patterns matter functionally and which may be 
of less importance. In the past, various heuristic measures have been used to 
characterise spike train data such as firing rates, interspike intervals, 
pair-correlations, and so on. More recently, advanced tools have been 
proposed that more systematically explore coding properties of neurons and 
neural ensembles. These comprise, for example, higher-order statistics, 
information-based interaction and complexity measures, spike-train metrics, 
or detailed computational models which allow to understand and predict 
spike-timing in neurons faithfully.

The workshop aims at reviewing some of these recent advances, especially 
progress on spike train metrics and complementary measures to characterise 
and predict neural firing patterns. Experimental studies, modelling, 
data-analysis, and theoretical contributions are equally welcome. Possible 
topics comprise but are not restricted to

- progress on single and multiple-unit spike train metrics
- information-theoretic approaches addressing spike patterns
- statistical characterisation of multiple unit firing patterns
- heuristic measures to characterise neural coding properties
- fitting of computational models from spike trains
- spike train prediction
- applications in data analysis and neural coding


The workshop will consist of invited talks, discussions, and a poster session.


Invited Speakers 

Matthias Bethge (MPI for Biological Cybernetics, Tubingen, Germany)
Christian Borgelt (European Centre for Soft Computing, Spain)
Bruno Cessac (Institute Non Lineare, Nice, France)
Richard Naud (EPFL, Lausanne, Switzerland)
Peter Latham (unconfirmed, UCL, UK)
Marcello Montemurro (University of Manchester, UK)
Rodrigo Quian-Quiroga (University of Leicester, UK)
Stefan Rotter (University of Freiburg, Germany)
Simon Schultz (Imperial College, UK)
Jonathan Victor (Weill Cornell Medical College, NY, USA)


Date and time: 2.June 2010 9:20 to 3.June 13:00

Venue: The University of Plymouth, UK

Participation is free, but registration *is* required.

Limited travel funds for students may become available.

For further information regarding registration, location, travel information, 
etc please visit the workshop webpage at http://helen.pion.ac.uk/stm2010



Organisers:

Thomas Wennekers (University of Plymouth, UK)
Sonja Gruen (RIKEN Brain Science Institute, Japan)
Roman Borisyuk (University of Plymouth, UK)
Leslie Smith (University of Stirling, UK)


This workshop is generously funded by the UK Spike Train Network and the UK 
Neuroinformatics Node.