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