Connectionists: Lorentz Center symposium "Brain and Organisms, Neuroscience beyond Computation"

[Francesco Battaglia]

Dear all,

we are still taking registrations for our Lorentz Center Symposium "Brain
and Organisms, Neuroscience beyond Computation" to be held in Leiden 16 to
20 March 2026.

Since the 1990s, that were designated as the “Decade of the brain” new
technologies have generate a wealth of empirical data unimaginable before.
Yet that era’s hopes for a new understanding of the brain that would
translate into effective treatment for a number of brain disorders seem to
be put on hold. The currently slow progress of brain theory, and,
relatedly, of clinical innovation has, in our opinion, a key cause in
reductionist, and reductive dominant paradigm which looks at “brain
machinery” in isolation, without paying much attention to the link between
the brain and the physiology of the whole organism, and to the
social-ecological environment in which natural brains operate. The
symposium will bring together mathematicians, philosophers, computer
scientists, and experimental neuroscientists to identify how a broader
perspective on brain-organism-environment may help formulating new
conceptual tools, and novel experimental paradigms. The sessions will
progress from debating to value of current computational and modeling
trends, to highly conceptual and theoretical perspective of the biological
brain and ending with the discussing how the brain integrates into the
organism as a whole, and into a social network in individuals. We hope to
formulate new ideas, which will be summarized for example in a  special
issue of a prominent academic journal.


You can see more info, and register at
https://www.lorentzcenter.nl/brain-and-organisms-neuroscience-beyond-computation.html

Please do not hesitate contacting me if you have any questions!

All best, Francesco

Prof. Dr. Francesco P. Battaglia
Principal Investigator
Neuronal Networks of Memory Lab
Donders Centre for Neuroscience
Heyendaalseweg 135
6525AJ Nijmegen - The Netherlands
francesco.battaglia at donders.ru.nl
fpbattaglia at gmail.com

Post address:
P.O. box 9010 internal Mailbox 66
6500GL Nijmegen The Netherlands

September 2025- January 2026:
Distinguished NIAS-Lorentz Center Fellow
(on sabbatical at NIAS in Amsterdam)
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://mailman.srv.cs.cmu.edu/pipermail/connectionists/attachments/20251221/76efac7c/attachment.html>