2021 — 2022 |
Lazar, Aurel Haspel, Gal Izquierdo, Eduardo Naumann, Eva |
N/AActivity Code Description: No activity code was retrieved: click on the grant title for more information |
Functional Logic of Neural Circuits: Diamonds in the Rough @ New Jersey Institute of Technology
One of the pressing challenges to understand large and complex nervous systems is to map how and for what purpose neurons communicate at the lowest level. One-way researchers have made great progress is by recording enormous amounts of information about the neuronal connections, circuits, neural activity, behavior and even genomic structure of smaller nervous systems of some model systems, such as the nematode, fruit fly, or zebrafish. However, all this detailed information has not yet led to satisfying and deeper insight into important questions relevant to understanding the human brain. For example, how do circuits of neurons process, encode, store, and retrieve information? To address such questions, it is important to develop conceptual and theoretical frameworks of the functional logic of brain circuits that go beyond the current computational models. This award will bring together neuroscience pioneers from different fields, including experimental, computational, and theoretical disciplines to define the most important topics and questions to address this challenge.
The organizers will produce and lead a workshop on the Functional Logic of Neural Circuits. The workshop will take place in two phases, a virtual meeting followed by an in-person meeting four months later, in Puerto Rico. In the first phase, the participants will bring up questions and map out the gap among the diverse fields intersecting these disciplines. They will collect ideas from diverse researchers, gauge interest, and solicit feedback and collective input from forward thinkers in these areas to lay ground for the second phase. In a second phase, participants will identify concrete research directions and opportunities that, if pursued, can initiate new conceptual developments that will lead to new breakthroughs in our understanding of the functional logic of neural circuits. The specific topic of the workshop, namely the functional logic of neural circuits offers an opportunity to impact not just our understanding of nervous systems, large or small, but also inform the development of artificial systems with the robustness and flexibility of living organisms. Finally, this workshop aims to not only bring together scientists to identify difficult problems at interdisciplinary interfaces, but to also train a young and diverse generation of diverse scientists to collaborate at the frontiers of neuroscience.
This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.
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0.996 |
2022 — 2023 |
Izquierdo, Eduardo Naumann, Eva Haspel, Gal Lazar, Aurel Seeds, Andrew |
N/AActivity Code Description: No activity code was retrieved: click on the grant title for more information |
Conference: Functional Logic of Neural Circuits: Diamonds in the Rough (Flndr) @ New Jersey Institute of Technology
Natural behavior is the result of complex interactions between neurons, between neurons and the body, and between the body and the environment. Understanding the neural circuits underpinning animal behavior, therefore, involves unravelling this web of interactions and has captured the imagination and efforts of biologists, physicists, mathematicians, engineers, and artificial intelligence researchers alike. This award provides funding for researchers in these various disciplines to come together and find common direction, exchange ideas and insights, and create new collaborations.<br/><br/>The organizers will produce and lead a workshop on the Functional Logic of Neural Circuits. The workshop will take place in Puerto Rico in February 2023. The goal of the workshop is to create a highly interactive environment that fosters maximum information exchange amongst a diverse set of researchers from experimental, computational, and theoretical neuroscience, structural and functional connectomics, genomics, and artificial intelligence. To accomplish this goal, the workshop includes several planned activities including chalk talks, panel discussions, and random group breakouts. The workshop will result in a comprehensive summary that will be widely disseminated for the purpose of fostering new community efforts around this challenging scientific problem.<br/><br/>This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.
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0.996 |