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SUMMER SCHOOL IN COMPUTATIONAL NEUROSCIENCE, Basel, August 2021

by Rava A. da Silveira

*CN**EURO**2022* *Theoretical and Computational Neuroscience Summer School* *14 to 21 August 2022 — In person in Basel, Switzerland* *This year: “L**EARNING,** M**EMORY, AND **D**ECISION **M**AKING IN **B**RAINS AND **M**ACHINES**”* *www.cneuro.net* <http://www.cneuro.net> *About CNeuro* How intelligence and behavior emerge from complex and intricate interactions within the brain remains a deep and unsolved mystery, central to an exciting area of interdisciplinary research. The past decade has seen rapid progress in experimental tools that now make it possible to monitor and manipulate brain circuits in unprecedented detail. This evolution presents challenges and opportunities for both experimentalists and theorists. Mathematical theory is instrumental in the emergence of theoretical insights and frameworks that can help guide experimental work and identify unifying principles of brain function. The aim of the one-week summer school will be to introduce students with a strong quantitative background (in mathematics, physics, computer science, and engineering) to the emerging field of theoretical and computational neuroscience. The distinguishing feature of CNeuro is the emphasis it places on the role of systematic mathematical theory for understanding the brain, in part by stressing the connections between neuroscience, statistics, machine learning, and artificial intelligence. *Topic and format* Past editions of CNeuro have focused on theoretical approaches to neural dynamics and coding. This year’s school will be organized around a different theme: it will explore various facets of learning, memory, and decision making, from circuit neuroscience to cognition to artificial intelligence. The course will bring together leading scientists in the field, who will deliver both introductory and advanced lectures, and take part in small-group discussions. Other activities will include homework sessions and student presentations, as well as the now popular ‘Life and Science’ panel series, in which faculty and students can both share their personal experiences and views on research and career. *Confirmed faculty* Alaa Ahmed (University of Colorado Boulder, USA) Kameron Harris (Western Washington University, USA) Yonatan Loewenstein (The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Israel) Rubén Moreno-Bote (Universitat Pompeu Fabra, Spain) Gergő Orbán (Wigner Research Centre for Physics, Hungary) Maneesh Sahani (University College London, England) Tianming Yang (Institute of Neuroscience, China) Hang Zhang (Peking University, China) *Special Lecture by* Silvia Arber (FMI and University of Basel, Switzerland) *Organizers* Rava Azeredo da Silveira (ENS and IOB) Stella Christie (Tsinghua University) Sen Song (Tsinghua University) Louis Tao (Peking University) Xiaoqin Wang (Johns Hopkins University) Quan Wen (USTC) *Application and deadline* Information and application guidelines at www.cneuro.net. Applications will be reviewed starting on May 21, 2022. We will make every effort to recruit students from diverse backgrounds including all genders and ethnic groups.

April 27, 2022

Postdoc position in Spiking Neural Networks available

by Thomas Nowotny

Dear Comp-Neuro, a postdoc position in Neuromorphic Computing and machine learning with Spiking Neural Networks is available in my group. Join our vibrant team at the beautiful University of Sussex campus in Brighton, UK. Closing date 17 May 2022 Desired start date 1 July 2022 Details and application: https://www.sussex.ac.uk/about/jobs/research-fellow-ref-8453 Please get in touch with me for any informal enquiries. Kind regards, Thomas Nowotny -- Prof. Thomas Nowotny Head of AI Research Group CCNR, Sussex Neuroscience Phone: +44-1273-678593 Engineering and Informatics, Fax: +44-1273-877873 University of Sussex, Falmer, Brighton BN1 9QJ sussex.ac.uk/informatics/tnowotny<http://sussex.ac.uk/informatics/tnowotny> <../../owa/redir.aspx?C=9e11bb0e527242938402b42d9b5498ea&URL=http%3a%2f%2fsussex.ac.uk%2finformatics%2ftnowotny> I support the University of Sussex Community Pledge, as I continue to help those around me during the pandemic. Small acts of collaboration, kindness and integrity can make a big difference. www.sussex.ac.uk/community-pledge<http://www.sussex.ac.uk/community-pledge>

April 26, 2022

Neuro2022 Late-Breaking Abstracts and International Symposium on AI and Brain Science

by Kenji Doya

Neuro2022 is calling for late-breaking abstracts for poster presentations by April 29, 12:00JST (3:00GMT). https://neuro2022.jnss.org/en/lba.html Neuro2022 is a joint conference of Japanese Neuroscience, Neurochemistry and Neural Networks Societies, held from June 30 to July 3, 2022 in the beautiful island of Okinawa in an on-site/online hybrid format. https://neuro2022.jnss.org/en/ It is followed by the 2nd International Symposium on AI and Brain Science on July 4-5 at Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology http://www.brain-ai.jp/symposium2022/ Confirmed Speakers: Yoshua Bengio (University of Montreal) Matthew Botvinick (DeepMind) Karl Friston (University College London) Hiroaki Gomi (NTT Communication Science Laboratories) Ryota Kanai (ARAYA Inc.) Angela Langdon (Princeton University) Yutaka Matsuo (The University of Tokyo) Maneesh Sahani (Gatsby Computational Neuroscience Unit) Terrence Sejnowski (Salk Institute Univesity of California San Diego) Jun Tani (Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology) Masashi Sugiyama (RIKEN Center for Advanced Intelligence Project) Naotsugu Tsuchiya (Monash University) Xiao-Jing Wang (New York University) The symposium is also in an on-site/online hybrid format. Free registration and abstract submission for on-site poster presentations will open in early May. Please refer to this page for the information about entry to Japan. https://neuro2022.jnss.org/en/visa.html All foreign nationals need a visa, but self-quarantine is not required from most countries with a proof of three vaccinations. ---- Kenji Doya <doya(a)oist.jp<mailto:doya@oist.jp>> Neural Computation Unit, Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology Graduate University 1919-1 Tancha, Onna, Okinawa 904-0495, Japan Phone: +81-98-966-8594; Fax: +81-98-966-2891 https://groups.oist.jp/ncu

April 26, 2022

Further deadline extension for CNS*2022 posters

by Thomas Nowotny

Dear all, 31st Annual Computational Neuroscience Meeting (CNS*2022) Melbourne 16-20 July 2022 https://www.cnsorg.org/cns-2022 The CNS*2022 abstract submission deadline for posters has been extended to Monday, 02 May at 14:00 European Summer Time. Please note this is an exceptional extension for posters only. One of the authors must register as sponsoring author for the main meeting before abstract submission. Submitted abstracts are used for creating the program and for publication. Please follow the formatting guidelines on the submission site. Registration: https://ocns.memberclicks.net/cns-2022-registration Abstract Submission: https://cns.confmaster.net/ The call for workshops remains open: CALL FOR WORKSHOPS: https://www.cnsorg.org/cns-2022-call-for-workshops Priority Deadline for proposals was 15 April 2022 Regards, Thomas Nowotny OCNS vice-president on behalf of the board of directors -- Prof. Thomas Nowotny Head of AI Research Group CCNR, Sussex Neuroscience Phone: +44-1273-678593 Engineering and Informatics, Fax: +44-1273-877873 University of Sussex, Falmer, Brighton BN1 9QJ sussex.ac.uk/informatics/tnowotny<http://sussex.ac.uk/informatics/tnowotny> I support the University of Sussex Community Pledge, as I continue to help those around me during the pandemic. Small acts of collaboration, kindness and integrity can make a big difference. www.sussex.ac.uk/community-pledge<http://www.sussex.ac.uk/community-pledge>

April 25, 2022

The Third Canadian Computational Neuroscience Spotlight: June 6-7 on Crowdcast

by Scott Rich

Dear Comp-neuro mailing list, I'm excited to have you be the first to know that *the third edition of the Canadian Computational Neuroscience Spotlight (CCNSv3) will take place June 6th and 7th, once again via Crowdcast*. We are still finalizing the meeting's itinerary and speakers (keep an eye on ccnsmeeting.ca for updates), but we're excited to announce the four themed sessions: - Dr. Alexandra Chatzikalymniou of Stanford University will chair a session on neural circuit modelling. - Dr. Randy McIntosh of Simon Fraser University will chair a session on large-scale brain modelling. - Dr. Milad Lankarany will chair a session on Neuro-AI. - Drs. Andreea Diaconescu and Povilas Karvelis will co-chair a session on cognitive modelling. To register, go to https://www.crowdcast.io/e/ccnsv3/register and click "Save my spot!" That will ensure your access come June and that you receive our e-mail updates during the coming weeks. Registration is entirely free, and replays will be available to all registrants to address time-zone concerns. Please don't hesitate to reach out to myself or anyone on the organizing committee if you have questions. We look forward to seeing you for CCNSv3! Sincerely, The CCNS Organizing Committee Scott Rich <http://scottrich.strikingly.com/>, Ph.D.: Postdoctoral Research Fellow, Krembil Brain Institute Andreea Diaconescu <https://cognemo.com/>, Ph.D.: Independent Scientist, Krembil Centre for Neuroinformatics at CAMH John Griffiths <https://t.co/AlUQymEUae?amp=1>, Ph.D.: Independent Scientist, Krembil Centre for Neuroinformatics at CAMH Milad Lankarany <https://sites.google.com/view/lnsbsp/home>, Ph.D.: Scientist, Krembil Brain Institute

April 25, 2022

Invitation to join the OCNS Student SIG on the Neurostars forum

by Fleur Zeldenrust

Dear computational neuroscience PhD students and postdocs, The Organization for Computational Neuroscience <https://www.cnsorg.org> (OCNS) has long been supportive of computational neuroscience students. To take this further, we are starting an OCNS SIG (Special Interest Group) for students and postdocs in computational neuroscience. This group will be launched with support from the current and assistant Training and Education Directors (Fleur Zeldenrust and Malin Sandström). Our hope is to eventually transition the SIG into being led by students - one PhD representative, one postdoc representative, and two alternates. The goal of the group is to help computational neuroscience students connect to their peers, to network, to get experience in scientific presentation, discussion and event organization, and to get insight into career possibilities. Are you a student, active in or interested in computational neuroscience? Would you like to be part of the SIG? Please take our survey to let us know what group activities you would be interested in: https://forms.gle/y94h9dstqGH45U7d9 Since we do not want to send you unwanted email, we would like to do our future correspondence through the Neurostars forum. We kindly invite you to register there and join our newly started SIG group. We will use this group to coordinate all the other SIG activities, such as group meetings, workshops, journal clubs and study groups. After you join, you can stay updated via email. Please use this link to register: https://neurostars.org/invites/be8ftCwsXT Best regards, Fleur Zeldenrust (OCNS Training & Education Chair) Malin Sandström (OCNS Training & Education Assistant)

April 22, 2022

Competition and workshop on behavior analysis

by Ann Kennedy

Dear all, I'm writing to advertise our Multi-Agent Behavior Workshop and associated machine learning competition, aimed at developing better tools for the quantification of animal behavior: The Multi-Agent Behavior Challenge on Unsupervised Learning<https://www.aicrowd.com/challenges/multi-agent-behavior-challenge-2022> is a competition to learn meaningful representations of behavioral video datasets in a self-supervised way. Teams are given collections of video and pose data of interacting animals (mice, flies, or ant-beetle pairs), and asked to submit an embedding that captures animals' actions; embeddings are evaluated on a gauntlet of hidden tasks to judge their ability to capture human-defined behaviors. Round 2 has just launched, and runs through May 20th, with $6,000 in cash prizes, plus the first 50 teams to beat task baselines receive up to $400 in AWS credits. Call for Papers: The Multi-Agent Behavior Workshop<https://sites.google.com/view/mabe22/home> at CVPR brings together researchers studying behavior of interacting agents, broadly defined (this year's invited speakers spans topics in biology, neuroscience, robotics, reinforcement learning, and autonomous driving.) We invite you to submit your work<https://sites.google.com/view/mabe22/call-for-papers> to present at our workshop poster session, held on June 20th at CVPR in New Orleans. Workshop organizers: Ann Kennedy (Northwestern), Jennifer J. Sun (Caltech), and Kristin Branson (Janelia) Best regards, Ann Ann Kennedy Assistant Professor Department of Neuroscience Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine Chicago, IL 60611 kennedylab.org<http://kennedylab.org/>

April 21, 2022

2 Postdoctoral positions in Computational Neuroscience - Cheng lab, Ruhr University Bochum

by Vinita Samarasinghe

Prof. Sen Cheng, Faculty of Computer Science, Ruhr University Bochum, invites applications for two full-time positions (39.83 hours/week) of *Postdoctoral Scholar (TV-L E13) in Computational Neuroscience. * The positionsstart on 1st July 2022and arefunded for 3 years.** _*Positions*_ 1. The successful applicant will work on a collaborative project (within the Collaborative Research Center “Extinction Learning” SFB 1280 <https://sfb1280.ruhr-uni-bochum.de/en/home/>), together with experimentalists to: * analyze learning dynamics in behavioral, neural, and psychophysiological data, which will be collected by other projects within the SFB 1280. * compare the learning dynamics between individuals, species, learning phases and learning paradigms. * develop algorithms to analyze the learning dynamics. * develop and study computational models of learning dynamics. * coordinate research with other participating projects. The research centeris highly dynamic and uses diverse computationalmodeling approachesincludingbiological neural networks, cognitive modeling, and machine learning to investigatelearning and memory in humans and animals. 2. The successful candidate will model the function of episodic memory in spatial learning and other tasks using reinforcement learning within the Research Unit “Constructing Scenarios of the Past: A New Framework in Episodic Memory” FOR 2812 <https://for2812.rub.de/>. This project strives to find answers to the questions: * Why and how can specific experiences stored in episodic memory be helpful for learning? * How is behavior driven by episodic memory different from that driven by general knowledge, or semantic information? * How do different learning systems interact with one another? The research unit studies the cognitive and neuronal mechanisms underlying scenario construction, which is believed to lie at the heart of episodic memory retrieval. It employs and combines approaches from Philosophy, Psychology as well as Experimental and Computational Neuroscience. _*Qualifications*_ * Adoctorate degreein neuroscience, physics, mathematics, electrical/biomedical engineering or a closely related field. In exceptional cases, graduate students with a Masters degree in these fields, but nodoctorate degree, may be considered. * Relevant experience in mathematical modeling * Relevant research experience in neuroscience or a related field (only position 1) * Excellent programming skills (e.g., Python, C/C++, Matlab), * Excellent communication skills in English * The ability to work well in a team. The Ruhr University Bochum is home to a vibrant research community in neuroscienceand cognitive science. The Institute for Neural Computation in the Faculty of Computer Science combines different areas of expertise ranging from experimental and theoretical neuroscienceto machine learning androbotics. Please send your application, including CV, transcripts (bachelor & master) and research statement electronically, as a single PDF file, to samarasinghe(a)ini.rub.de <mailto:samarasinghe@ini.rub.de>. In addition, at least two academic references mustbe sent independently to the above email address. The Ruhr University Bochum is committed to equal opportunity. We strongly encourage applications from qualified women and persons with disabilities. We are committed to providing a supportive work environment for female researchers, in particular those with young children. Our university provides mentoring and coaching opportunities specifically aimed at women in research. We have a strong research network with female role models and will provide opportunities to networkwith them. Wherever possible, events will be scheduled during regular childcare hours. Special childcare will be arranged if events have to be scheduled outside of regular hours, in case of sickness and during school or daycare closures. Where childcare is not an option parents will be offered a home office solution. Contact person: Vinita Samarasinghe, samarasinghe(a)ini.rub.de <mailto:samarasinghe@ini.rub.de> -- Vinita Samarasinghe M.Sc., M.A. Science Manager Arbeitsgruppe Computational Neuroscience Institut für Neuroinformatik Ruhr-Universität Bochum, NB 3/73 Postfachnummer 110 Universitätstr. 150 44801 Bochum Tel: +49 (0) 234 32 27996 Email:samarasinghe@ini.rub.de

April 21, 2022

Postdoc / Research Fellow for complex network analysis: Critical events detection; Prague, Czech Republic

by Magda Pokorna

Postdoctoral or Research Fellow position is available to join the *Complex Networks and Brain Dynamics group <http://cobra.cs.cas.cz/>* for the project: /*“*//*Modelling and analysis of complex systems for safety of critical infrastructures“*/ as part of the National Center of Competence – Cybernetics and Artificial Intelligence funded by the Technology Agency of the Czech Republic, and related projects. The project involves developing, implementing, optimizing and applying techniques for detection and prediction of critical events and regime transitions and their propagation in complex networks, with applications in societally important real-world systems such as social and communication networks, computer networks and large-scale industrial systems. **Applications will be reviewed on a rolling basis with a first cut-off point on May 30, 2022.** More information and application at https://www.cs.cas.cz/job-offer/NCK-postdoc-positions-Hlinka1/cs** ** Do not hesitate to contact the principal investigator for informal inquiries concerning the position: Ing. Mgr. Jaroslav Hlinka, Ph.D., hlinka(a)cs.cas.cz, Web: http://cs.cas.cz/hlinka. Institute of Computer Science Czech Academy of Sciences Pod Vodarenskou vezi 2 Prague 8, 182 07, Czech Republic https://www.cs.cas.cz/

April 20, 2022

Postdoc / Junior Scientist in complex networks and information theory; Prague, Czech Republic

by Magda Pokorna

Postdoctoral / Junior Scientist position in complex networks and information theory is available to join the***Complex Networks and Brain Dynamics group <http://cobra.cs.cas.cz/>* for the project: *“Network modelling of complex systems: from correlation graphs to information hypergraphs“* funded by the Czech Science Foundation. The project involves developing, optimizing and applying techniques for modelling complex dynamical systems beyond the currently available methods of complex network analysis and game theory. The project is carried out in collaboration with the Artificial Intelligence Center of the Czech Technical University. **Applications will be reviewed on a rolling basis with a first cut-off point on April 30, 2022.** More information and application at https://www.cs.cas.cz/job-offer/postdoc-junior-position-Hlinka5-2021/en** ** Do not hesitate to contact the principal investigator for informal inquiries concerning the position: Ing. Mgr. Jaroslav Hlinka, Ph.D., hlinka(a)cs.cas.cz. Jaroslav Hlinka Head of the Department of Complex Systems Institute of Computer Science Czech Academy of Sciences Pod Vodarenskou vezi 2 Prague 8, 182 07, Czech Republic Web: http://cs.cas.cz/hlinka

April 20, 2022