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Swartz Initiative in Theoretical Neurobiology at Yale University

 

With the support of the Swartz Foundation, this initiative will foster collaborative research and interdisciplinary training in computational neuroscience at Yale. The center’s faculty consists of Xiao-Jing Wang (director), David McCormick, Daeyeol Lee, Jamie Mazer, and Mark Laubach. These five labs share a common goal of elucidating cellular mechanisms and neural dynamics that underlie higher brain functions, such as working memory, decision making and selective attention.

 

Recent years have seen great strides in our understanding of sensory processing and plasticity at the cellular and molecular levels. A major challenge today is to firmly establish general principles as well as detailed neural mechanisms of basic cognitive functions.  Our work aims at making progress in this direction, with a focus on the prefrontal cortex.

 

Theory and computational modeling play a critical role in this enterprise, especially in studies of strongly recurrent cortical circuits, which we believe hold the key to understanding the chain of causal links from molecules to complex and flexible behaviors.  Topics of active research represented in this initiative include self-sustained neural activity patterns and working memory, decision making, reinforcement learning, timing, variability and synchrony of neural activity and visual attention in natural environments.

 

We are joined by a large number of neuroscientists at Yale with a strong computational component to their research programs, including Amy Arnsten, Marvin Chun, Todd Constable, Thierry Emonet, Gordon Shepherd and Steven Zucker. The Swartz funds will be used to support postdoctoral fellows, a new computational/systems neurobiology seminar series and the Spike Club.

 

Additional resources:

 

The Swartz Initiative at Yale webpage:

https://medicine.yale.edu/neuroscience/swartz/

 

December 14, 2009:

Rain or Shine? Computer Models How Brain Cells Reach a Decision



Tuesday, March 19, 2024
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2013 Stony Brook Mind/Brain Lecture - Michael Wigler, PhD
 
 
2012 Stony Brook Mind/Brain Lecture - John Donoghue
 
 
Sloan-Swartz Centers Annual Meeting 2011
 
 
2011 Stony Brook Mind/Brain Lecture - Allison J. Doupe
 
 
2011 Banbury Workshop
 
 
Sloan-Swartz Centers Annual Meeting 2010
 
 
2010 Stony Brook Mind/Brain Lecture
 
 
Sloan-Swartz Centers Annual Meeting 2009
 
 
Conference on Neural Dynamics
 
 
2009 Stony Brook Mind/Brain Lecture
 
 
Canonical Neural Computation, April 2009
 
 
2009 Banbury Workshop
 
 
Sloan-Swartz Centers Annual Meeting 2008
 
 
Theoretical and Experimental Approaches to Auditory and Visual Attention - Banbury 2008
 
 
Stony Brook Mind/Brain 2008: Patricia Smith Churchland, B. Phil. D
 
 
Sloan-Swartz Centers Annual Meeting 2007
 
 
New Frontiers In Studies Of Nonconscious Processing - Banbury 2007
 
 
Stony Brook Mind/Brain 2007: Professor Michael Shadlen, MD, PhD
 
 
Multi-level Brain Modeling Workshop 2006
 
 
Sloan Swartz Centers Annual Meeting 2006
 
 
Banbury 2006: Computational Approaches to Cortical Functions
 
 
Stony Brook Mind/Brain 2006: Helen Fisher -- Lecture Videos
 
 
Sloan-Swartz Centers for Theoretical Neurobiology
 
 
Swartz Center for Computational Neuroscience
 
 
Banbury Center Workshop Series
 
 
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