Connectionists: Workshop of Ideas in Neuroscience: Decoding the Brain: from methods to meaning, June 2-4th

[Mateusz Kostecki]

Hello!

We are super happy to announce the next *Workshop of Ideas in Neuroscience,
that will take place **at the Paris Brain Institute, June 2–4th.*

This time, the topic is *Decoding the brain: from methods to meaning*.

Applying machine learning and other models to decode behavioral parameters
from neural activity is now a standard procedure in neuroscience. These
approaches are often used to demonstrate that a specific neural population
processes information related to behavior, or that certain patterns of
brain activity represent external stimuli.

However, this framework has not been without its critics.

The notion that the brain’s primary role is to encode and decode
information has been questioned by neuroscientists and philosophers alike.
Ambiguity often surrounds the concept of "encoding," including what is
meant by it and the criteria required for neural activity to be considered
as encoding a particular feature.

The aim of this workshop will be to perform an in-depth analysis and
discussion of this framework and see examples of how, when, and why it
should be applied – or challenged. With our speakers, we will try to trace
different meanings of "encoding", discuss shortcomings of methods applied
to decode information from neural signals – and how those considerations
can improve our experiments!

*Our speakers are:*

   -

   Mazviita Chirimuuta (University of Edinburgh)
   -

   Henry Yin (Duke University)
   -

   Romain Brette (Institute of Intelligent Systems and Robotics)
   -

   Farid Zahnoun (University of Antwerp)
   -

   Heike Stein (Sorbonne Université Paris)

The workshop will follow the tradition of our *Schools of Ideas in
Neuroscience*, with long, in-depth talks, discussions, and interactions in
an informal environment!

The deadline for application is *May 11th*.
Please find more info and the link here –
https://nenckiopenlab.org/decoding/.

Best,

Mateusz Kostecki
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