- Comp-neuro - lists.cnsorg.org

Frontiers Research Topic: Memory Processes in Medial Temporal Lobe: Experimental, Theoretical and Computational Approaches
by Vassilis Cutsuridis March 20, 2014

March 20, 2014

Dear colleagues, we would like to inform you that our Research Topic organized with Frontiers in Neuroscience (Host Specialty: Frontiers in Systems Neuroscience) is still open and it will be accepting abstracts till *May 1st, 2014*. Our Research Topic is entitled: "Memory Processes in Medial Temporal Lobe: Experimental, Theoretical and Computational Approaches" Topic Editors: Motoharu Yoshida (University of Bochum) and Vassilis Cutsuridis (Foundation for Research and Technology - Hellas (… [View More]FORTH)) Important deadlines ---------------------------- Abstract Submission Deadline: *May 1st, 2014* Article Submission Deadline: August 1st, 2014 Research Topic Description ---------------------------------------- The medial temporal lobe (MTL) includes the hippocampus, amygdala and parahippocampal regions, and is crucial for episodic and spatial memory. MTL memory function consists of distinct processes such as encoding, consolidation and retrieval. Encoding is the process by which perceived information is transformed into a memory trace. After encoding, memory traces are stabilized by consolidation. Memory retrieval (recall) refers to the process by which memory traces are reactivated to access information previously encoded and stored in the brain. Although underlying neural mechanisms supporting these distinct functional stages remain largely unknown, recent studies have indicated that distinct oscillatory dynamics, specific neuron types, synaptic plasticity and neuromodulation, play a central role. The theta rhythm is believed to be crucial in the encoding and retrieval of memories. Experimental and computational studies indicate that precise timing of principal cell firing in the hippocampus, relative to the theta rhythm, underlies encoding and retrieval processes. On the other hand, sharp-wave ripples have been implicated in the consolidation through the "replay" of memories in compressed time scales. The neural circuits and cell types supporting memory processes in the MTL areas have only recently been delineated using experimental approaches such as optogenetics, juxtacellular recordings and optical imaging. Principal (excitatory) cells are crucial for encoding, storing and retrieving memories at the cellular level, whereas inhibitory interneurons provide the temporal structures for orchestrating the activities of neuronal populations of principal cells by regulating synaptic integration and timing of action potential generation of principal cells as well as the generation and maintenance of network oscillations (rhythms). In addition, neuromodulators such as acetylcholine alter dynamical properties of neurons and synapses, and modulate oscillatory state and rules of synaptic plasticity and their levels might tune MTL to specific memory processes. The goal of the research topic is to offer a snapshot of the current stateof-the-art on how memories are encoded, consolidated, stored and retrieved in MTL structures. Particularly welcome will be studies (experimental or computational) focusing on the structure and function of neural circuits, their cellular components (principal cell and inhibitory interneurons), synaptic plasticity rules involved in these memory processes, network oscillations such as theta and sharp-wave ripples, and role of neuromodulators. Questions to be addressed: (1) Which areas or pathways within the MTL support encoding/consolidation/retrieval? (2) What neural activity defines specific memory processes? (3) What are the roles of neuromodulators in defining/switching these memory processes? (4) Could the role of synaptic plasticity be different in different memory processes? (5) What functional roles do the various inhibitory interneurons support during the encoding/consolidation/retrieval processes? About Frontiers Research Topics ------------------------------------------------ Frontiers Research Topics are designed to be an organized, encyclopedic coverage of a particular research area, and a forum for discussion and debate. Contributions can be of different article types (Original Research, Methods, Hypothesis & Theory, and others). Our Research Topic has a dedicated homepage on the Frontiers website, where contributing articles are accumulated and discussions can be easily held. Once all articles are published, the topic will be compiled into an e-book, which can be sent to foundations that fund your research, to journalists and press agencies, and to any number of other organizations. As the ultimate reference source from leading scientists, Frontiers Research Topic articles become highly cited. Frontiers is a Swiss-based, open access publisher. As such an article accepted for publication incurs a publishing fee, which varies depending on the article type. The publishing fee for accepted articles is below average compared to most other open access journals - and lower than subscription-based journals that apply page and color figure charges. Moreover, for Research Topic articles, the publishing fee is discounted quite steeply thanks to the support of the Frontiers Research Foundation. Details on Frontiers' fees can be found at http://www.frontiersin.org/about/PublishingFees. When published, your article will be freely available to visitors to the Frontiers site, and will be indexed in PubMed and other academic archives. As an author in Frontiers, you will retain the copyright to your own paper and all figures. The details regarding this Research Topic for Frontiers in Systems Neuroscience can be found at the following URL: http://www.frontiersin.org/systems_neuroscience/researchtopics/memory_proce… Should you choose to participate, please confirm by sending a quick email and then your abstract using the following link: http://www.frontiersin.org/submissioninfo Thanks in advance for your interest! Vassilis Cutsuridis and Motoharu Yoshida --- Vassilis Cutsuridis, PhD IMBB - FORTH Heraklion, Crete Greece [View Less]

1 0

NSG provides free access to supercomputers for parallel simulations
by Ted Carnevale March 20, 2014

March 20, 2014

The NSF-supported Neuroscience Gateway (NSG) http://www.nsgportal.org allows computational neuroscientists to run parallel simulations, free of charge, on supercomputers using tools like GENESIS, NEURON, NEST, Brian, and PyNN. Other tools will be added based on users' requests. NSG provides a simple web-based interface that makes it quick and easy to create an account, upload model code, run simulations, and get back results. To get started, go to http://www.nsgportal.org , click on the "Go to … [View More]

1 0

PhD in Cognitive Neuroscience
by Christoph T. Weidemann March 20, 2014

March 20, 2014

Applications are sought for a 3 year, fully-funded PhD position (UK & EU nationals) in the lab of Dr Christoph Weidemann at Swansea University, UK investigating context effects in cognition. The successful student will investigate how environmental statistics affect behaviour in "perceptual" and "recognition memory" tasks using computational modelling and rigorous empirical tests utilising dependent variables from choice responses (such as accuracy and response times) as well as brain … [View More]

1 0

RA position in Computational Tools for Optogenetics
by Nikolic, Konstantin March 19, 2014

March 19, 2014

[Apologies if you get multiple copies of this message] Imperial College London Department of Electrical and Electronic Engineering Research Associate in Computational Neuroscience Salary Range: £32,750– £34,500 per annum Full Time, fixed-term appointment for 12 months Applications are invited for a BBSRC funded Research Associate post on the development of multiscale computational tools for optogenetics. You will be based in the Centre for Bio-Inspired Technology (CBIT) http://www3.imperial.… [View More]

1 0

Call for posters/registration: Fourth International Symposium on Biology of Decision-Making, 26-28 May 2014 @ Paris, France
by Mehdi Khamassi March 18, 2014

March 18, 2014

[Please accept our apologies if you get multiple copies of this message] Dear colleagues, Registration is now open for the Fourth Symposium on Biology of Decision Making which will take place in Paris, France, on May, 26-28th 2014. Online registration is accessible at http://sbdm2014.isir.upmc.fr The deadline for poster submission is on April, 15th. The deadline for registration is on May, 1st. Registration fees (120 euros) include lunches, coffee breaks and access to social events. … [View More]Please circulate widely and encourage your colleagues to attend. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ FOURTH SYMPOSIUM ON BIOLOGY OF DECISION MAKING (SBDM 2014) May 26-28, 2014, Paris, France Institut du Cerveau et de la Moelle, Hôpital La Pitié Salpêtrière, Paris, France. & Ecole Normale Supérieure, Paris, France. & Université Pierre et Marie Curie, Paris, France. http://sbdm2014.isir.upmc.fr ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ PRESENTATION: The Fourth Symposium on Biology of Decision Making will take place on May 26-28, 2014 at the Institut du Cerveau et de la Moelle, Paris, France, with a satellite day at Ecole Normale Supérieure, Paris, France. The objective of this three day symposium is to gather people from different research fields with different approaches (economics, ethology, psychiatry, neural and computational approaches) to decision-making. The symposium will be a single-track, will last for 3 days and will include 6 sessions: (#1) Who is making decisions? Cortex or basal ganglia; (#2) New computational approaches to decision-making; (#3) A new player in decision-making: the hippocampus; (#4) Neuromodulation of decision-making; (#5) Maladaptive decisions in clinical conditions; (#6) Who is more rational? Decision making across species. CONFIRMED SPEAKERS: Bernard Balleine (Sydney University, Australia) Karim Benchenane (CNRS-ESPCI, France) Roland Benoit (Harvard, USA) Matthew Botvinick (Princeton University, USA) Anne Collins (Brown University, USA) Roshan Cools (Radboud Univ. Nijmegen, The Netherlands) Molly Crockett (UCL, UK) Jean Daunizeau (INSERM-ICM, France) Nathaniel Daw (NYU, USA) Kenji Doya (OIST, Japan) Philippe Faure (CNRS-UPMC, France) Lesley Fellows (McGill University, Canada) Algo Genovesio (Universita La Sapienza, Italy) Tobias Kalenscher (Universität Düsseldorf, Germany) Etienne Koechlin (CNRS-ENS, France) James Marshall (Sheffield University, UK) Genela Morris (Haifa University, Israel) Camilio Padoa-Schioppa (Washington Univ. St Louis, USA) Alex Pouget (Rochester University, USA) Pete Redgrave (Sheffield University, UK) Jonathan Roiser (UCL, UK) Masamichi Sakagami (Tamagawa University, Japan) Daphna Shohamy (Columbia University, USA) Klaas Stephan (Univ. Zurich & ETH Zurich, Switzerland) IMPORTANT DATES: April 15, 2014 Deadline for Poster Submission May 1, 2014 Deadline for Registration May 26-28, 2014 Symposium Venue ORGANIZING COMMITTEE: Thomas Boraud (CNRS, Bordeaux, France) Sacha Bourgeois-Gironde (La Sorbonne, Paris, France) Kenji Doya (OIST, Okinawa, Japan) Mehdi Khamassi (CNRS - UPMC, Paris, France) Etienne Koechlin (CNRS - ENS, Paris, France) Mathias Pessiglione (ICM - INSERM, Paris, France) CONTACT INFORMATION : Website, registration, poster submission and detailed program: http://sbdm2014.isir.upmc.fr Contact: sbdm2014 [ at ] isir.upmc.fr Questions about registration: sbdm2014-registration [ at ] isir.upmc.fr -- Mehdi Khamassi, PhD Researcher (CNRS) Institut des Systèmes Intelligents et de Robotique (UMR7222) CNRS - Université Pierre et Marie Curie Pyramide, Tour 55 - Boîte courrier 173 4 place Jussieu, 75252 Paris Cedex 05, France tel: + 33 1 44 27 28 85 fax: +33 1 44 27 51 45 cell: +33 6 50 76 44 92 http://people.isir.upmc.fr/khamassi -- Mehdi Khamassi, PhD Researcher (CNRS) Institut des Systèmes Intelligents et de Robotique (UMR7222) CNRS - Université Pierre et Marie Curie Pyramide, Tour 55 - Boîte courrier 173 4 place Jussieu, 75252 Paris Cedex 05, France tel: + 33 1 44 27 28 85 fax: +33 1 44 27 51 45 cell: +33 6 50 76 44 92 http://people.isir.upmc.fr/khamassi [View Less]

1 0

Frontiers Computational Neuroscience call for papers on "Integrating computational and neural findings in visual object perception"
by Peters J (PSYCHOLOGY) March 18, 2014

March 18, 2014

Frontiers in Computational Neuroscience, special issue on "Integrating computational and neural findings in visual object perception" http://www.frontiersin.org/computational_neuroscience/researchtopics/integr… Abstract submission deadline: Apr 1st 2014 Full paper submission deadline: June 1st 2014 Topic editors: Judith Peters Maastricht University / The Netherlands Institute for Neuroscience, The Netherlands Hans Op De Beeck … [View More] University of Leuven (KU Leuven), Belgium Rainer Goebel Maastricht University / The Netherlands Institute for Neuroscience, The Netherlands The advent of new imaging techniques such as ultra-high field fMRI and advanced multi-unit recordings provide insights into large-scale neural activation patterns underlying visual object perception with unprecedented detail. In parallel, innovative neuroscientific applications of machine learning and computational methods, including various encoding and decoding methods (Miyawaki et al., 2008; Naselaris et al., 2011), representational similarity analysis (Kriegeskorte et al., 2008; Op de Beeck et al., 2001), and hyperalignment (Haxby et al., 2011) have been developed, offering novel opportunities to tackle longstanding questions concerning the neural correlates of object representations (e.g., DiCarlo et al., 2012; Marr, 1982; Biederman, 1987). Likewise, new techniques to integrate simulated and empirical data (e.g., Braet, Kubilius, Wagemans, & Op de Beeck, in press; Peters et al., 2012, 2010; Goebel & De Weerd 2009) allow direct testing of neural findings against predictions of various computational object perception models, which may facilitate the incremental, cross-fertilized development of both biologically-validated machine vision models as well as computationally interpretable empirical models of neural object perception. The aim of this Research Topic is to provide a forum for state-of-the-art research integrating computational and empirical approaches to study the neural mechanisms underlying visual object perception as it is observed behaviorally in humans as well as other animals, including nonhuman primates and rodents. We welcome contributions addressing computational mechanisms underlying object perception related - but not limited - to key questions such as: * What is the nature of neural object representations (e.g., the degree of invariance, sparseness) and how do these representations change across different processing stages? * How are object features (e.g., Tanaka, 1996) computationally integrated into coherent object representations? * How do object representations in the ventral visual system allow invariant recognition without losing specificity to distinguish between similar exemplars? * How are object representations read-out by higher-order areas (e.g., hippocampus and prefrontal cortex), and how do current task instructions (e.g., between- versus within-category discrimination) or past experiences influence this read-out? * How are object perception mechanisms shaped by experience and development? * How can we optimally compare computer vision models to empirically-derived neural models based on human or animal object perception? Pre-submission inquiries can be sent to Judith Peters ( j.peters(a)maastrichtuniversity.nl<mailto:j.peters@maastrichtuniversity.nl>). All articles become freely available upon publication and benefit from the unique marketing tools developed by Frontiers. ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ Judith Peters (PhD) Maastricht Brain Imaging Center (M-BIC), Maastricht University Faculty of Psychology and Neuroscience, Maastricht University Neuroimaging and Neuromodeling group, Netherlands Institute for Neuroscience, Amsterdam [View Less]

1 0

Open Frontiers in neuroRobotics Research Topic
by Ajaz Ahmad Bhat March 18, 2014

March 18, 2014

A new research topic in Frontiers in NeuroRobotics "Motor cognition in animals and animates: Melting Neuroscience with Embodied Robotics" is open for abstracts submission. Emerging trends in motor neuroscience now provide converging evidence for this perspective and substantiate the fact that action 'generation, observation, imagination and understanding' share underlying functional networks in the brain. In this sense, overt actions are just the tip of an iceberg: under the surface is … [View More]

1 0

cybernetics in the brain
by Danko Nikolic March 17, 2014

March 17, 2014

Dear members, I would like to bring to your attention a newly available manuscript that dives into the mind-body problem using the approaches of cybernetics. The proposed theory describes the interaction between neurons, plasticity, genetics, and other biological phenomena in terms of feedback loops closed with the environment. This effort has a wonderful result: One can identify a missing component of today's brain theories--a component that is the "missing link" for explaining how … [View More]

1 0

postdoc in social learning in Collective Decision-making
by Peter Latham March 17, 2014

March 17, 2014

Applications are invited for a Postdoctoral Research Assistant at the Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience, University College London. The postdoc will be jointly supervised by Peter Latham (Gatsby Unit) and Bahador Bahrami (Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience). The goal of the project is to develop and test computational models of social learning and collective decision-making. This will build on our previous work in collective decision-making (Bahrami et al: Science 329:1081-1085, 2010; … [View More]

1 0

PhD in image analysis for behavioural tracking
by Mark Humphries March 17, 2014

March 17, 2014

Posted on behalf of Dr Robyn Grant: Applications are sought for a 3 year, fully-funded PhD position (UK & EU nationals) in the lab of Dr Robyn Grant at Manchester Metropolitan University, UK. Title: "Indicators of Neurodegenerative Disease revealed through Animal Behaviour: open source toolbox development for measurement of disease progression." Summary: A multi-disciplinary project developing image analysis tools for objective, non-invasive assessment of animal behaviour. In particular, … [View More]

1 0