Connectionists: REMINDER: Worldwide VVTNS series: Carl van Vreeswijk Memorial Lecture | Wednesday, April 9, 2025, at 11:00 am EDT| James DiCarlo, MIT

[David Hansel]

[image: VVTNS.png]
https://www.wwtns.online
<https://streaklinks.com/A9c7PbbpKY7PxB6PaAJWGD3-/https%3A%2F%2Fwww.wwtns.online>
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on twitter: wwtns at TheoreticalWide

You are cordially invited to the first
*'Carl van Vreeswijk Memorial Lecture ' *

James DiCarlo
MIT

 on the topic of

Do contemporary, machine-executable models
of primate sensory systems unlock the ability
to non-invasively, beneficially modulate
high-level brain states?

The lecture will be held on Zoom on April 9, 2025, at *11:00 am EDT *

To receive the link: https://www.wwtns.online/register-page

*Abstract: *Over the past decade, neuroscience, cognitive science and
computer science (“AI”) converged to create specific, image-computable,
deep neural network models intended to appropriately abstract, emulate and
explain the mechanisms of primate ventral visual processing, up to its
deepest neural level, the inferior temporal cortex (IT). Because these
leading neuroscientific emulation models — aka “digital twins” — are fully
observable and machine-executable, they offer predictive and potential
application power that our field’s prior conceptual models did not. Our
team’s ongoing work is aimed at asking if current digital twin models might
support non-invasive, beneficial brain modulation. In this talk, I will
describe a key result: we demonstrate that we can use a digital twin to
design spatial patterns of light energy that, when “added” to the
organism’s retinal input in the context of ongoing natural visual
processing, results in precise modulation (i.e. rate bias) of the pattern
of a population of IT neurons (where any intended modulation pattern is
chosen ahead of time by the scientist). Because the IT visual neural
populations are known to directly connect to and modulate downstream neural
circuits (e.g. amygdala) that may underlie psychological affective states
(e.g. mood and anxiety), this novel basic science may unlock a new,
non-invasive application avenue of potential future human clinical benefit.
This progress and new impact possibilities resulted from convergent brain
science and AI engineering efforts in the domain of visual object
intelligence. I will motivate this as just one example of what I believe
will unlock in other domains of human intelligence as brain scientists and
AI engineers collaborate to develop machine-executable models of the
underlying mechanisms of those still-mysterious domains.

*About VVTNS : Launched as the World Wide  Theoretical Neuroscience Seminar
(WWTNS) in November 2020 and renamed in homage to Carl van Vreeswijk in
Memoriam (April 20, 2022), Speakers have the occasion to talk about
theoretical aspects of their work which cannot be discussed in a setting
where the majority of the audience consists of experimentalists. The
seminars, **held on Wednesdays at 11 am ET,**  are 45-50 min long followed
by a discussion. The talks are recorded with authorization of the speaker
and are available to everybody on our YouTube channel.*
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-- 
*Il n'y a ni obligation ni pression à traiter ou répondre à ce mail en
dehors des heures de travail*

"В каждой шутке есть доля шутки"

'Life is good ..' (Carl van Vreeswijk, 1962-2022)
---------------------------------------
David Hansel
Directeur de Recherche  au CNRS
Co-Group leader
Cerebral Dynamics Plasticity and Learning lab., CNRS
45 rue des Saints Peres 75270 Paris Cedex 06
Tel (Cell):   +33 607508403 - Fax (33).1.49.27.90.62

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