Connectionists: 4th Bernstein Sparks Workshop: Beyond Mean-Field Theory in the Neurosciences

[farzad]

Dear Colleagues,

We have noticed that still there is a few seats available for attending
the workshop and poster presentation and decided to extent the abstract
submission for a week (till 28 April 2015). Please see below for more
info or visit the workshop website at
http://www.nncn.de/en/news/events/bernstein-sparks-workshop-mean-field-theory

Bests,
Farzad
Guillaume




-------- Forwarded Message --------
Subject: 	Connectionists: 4th Bernstein Sparks Workshop: Beyond
Mean-Field Theory in the Neurosciences
Date: 	Wed, 08 Apr 2015 16:07:45 +0200
From: 	farzad <farzad.farkhooi at fu-berlin.de>
Reply-To: 	farzad at bccn-berlin.de
To: 	connectionists at MAILMAN.SRV.cs.cmu.edu



*4th Bernstein Sparks Workshop: Beyond Mean-Field Theory in the**
**Neurosciences*

June 3-5, 2015
Max Planck Institute for Dynamics and Self-Organization
Göttingen, Germany
Bernstein Workshop website link
<http://www.nncn.de/en/news/events/bernstein-sparks-workshop-mean-field-theory>

A theoretical understanding of neural activity in the brain requires
powerful mathematical techniques capable of handling a, nonlinear and
noisy behavior. Throughout the past decades, many approaches originally
developed for theoretical physics were adapted for problems in the
neurosciences. Perhaps one of the most successful techniques to be
refitted is the so-called mean-field theory for population dynamics.
This approach was pioneered by Grossberg (1967) and Wilson, Cowan (1972)
and others. Their key results were instrumental to important findings
and predictions in computational neuroscience. Later on, the theory was
extended with the inclusion of second-order statistics by van Vreeswijik
and Sompolinski (1996) describing the observed irregular activity of
excitatory and inhibitory neurons in cortex, so-called the balanced state.


Although adapted mean‐field approaches are successful in providing a
good base for many experimental and theoretical observations, their
limited “averaging” scope fails to capture many important features of
populations dynamics. For instance, phenomena that include spike
dependent learning rules or network dynamics driven by external
stimulations remain elusive. Moreover, it is unclear what mathematical
techniques are needed to address these shortcomings.

This workshop will focus on the inherent difficulties of neural
population dynamics problems and newly arising research topics. The
meeting aims to serve as a forum for key researchers working with
mean-field approaches and/or their emerging alternatives to exchange
their tools and views.


The workshop will be limited to about 40 people, the hope being to
provide an ample possibility of interaction and discussions.


Confirmed speakers:
    Yonatan Aljadeff (UCSD, USA)
    Carson C. Chow (NIH, USA)
    John Hertz (Niels Bohr Institute, Denmark)
    Brigit Kriener (U of Texas, USA)
    Benjamin Lindner (BCCN and HU Berlin, Germany)
    Duane Nykamp (U of Minnesota, USA)
    Kanaka Rajan (Princeton U, USA)
    Alfonso Renart (Champalimaud, Portugal)
    Yasser Roudi (Kavli Institute, Norway)
    Wilhelm Stannat (BCCN und TU Berlin, Germany)
    Merav Stern (Columbia U, USA)
    Mark Timme (BCCN and MPI-DS Göttingen, Germany)
    Jonathan Touboul (INRIA, France)
    Carl van Vreeswijk (CNRS, France)
    Fred Wolf (BCCN and MPI-DS Göttingen, Germany)


Please find further information under the following link:
www.nncn.de/en/news/events/bernstein-sparks-workshop-mean-field-theory


Bests regards,
Farzad Farkhooi (Institut  für  Mathematik,  Technische  Universität
Berlin  and BCCN Berlin, Germany)
Guillaume Lajoie (University of Washington Institute for
Neuroengineering, Seattle, US and  MPI-DS & BCCN Göttingen, Göttingen,
Germany)