/Department of Neurobiology & Behavior
Center for Neural Circuit Dynamics

LIRR STRIKE: The LIRR is on strike, disrupting the ability for commuters to get to and from the Stony Brook campus. More details here.

 

Computational and Theoretical Neuroscience Journal Club at CNCD (Past)

As the tools in experiments neuroscience are rapidly developing, this is an important time to consider the broad trends and aims of the computational/theoretical works that are born alongside them. Our aim is to present and discuss papers that reflect these modern directions so that we may better understand how our own work fits into a global neuroscience picture. Some themes and topics that we hope to cover are:

  • computational models of neural systems
  • novel analysis tools for understanding neural recordings
  • recent advances in theoretical neuroscience
  • popular theories in neuroscience

Current schedule

 

2025 Fall Schedule

Date Presenter Paper
09/03 Braden Brinkman Coarse Graining, Fixed Points, and Scaling in a Large Population of Neurons
09/10 Vidya Pattisapu Metabolically regulated spiking could serve neuronal energy homeostasis and protect from reactive oxygen species
09/17 Jacob Crosser Quasiuniversal scaling in mouse-brain neuronal activity stems from edge-of-instability critical dynamics
09/24 Prerana Shrestha Research Publication
10/01 Siddharth Paliwal Chaotic neural dynamics facilitate probabilistic computations through sampling
10/08 Yuhan Zhang A cognitive map for value-guided choice in the ventromedial prefrontal cortex
10/15 [Cosyne deadline]  
10/22 Liam Lang Biologically informed cortical models predict optogenetic perturbations
10/29 Peter Bo Transitions in dynamical regime and neural mode during perceptual decisions
11/05 John Chen Stimulus-invariant aspects of the retinal code drive discriminability of natural scenes
11/12 Tai Yuan Intrinsic dynamics of randomly clustered networks generate place fields and preplay of novel environments
11/19 Siwei Wang Probabilistic models, compressible interactions, and neural coding
11/26 [Thanksgiving]  
12/03 Giancarlo La Camera Interactions between long- and short-term synaptic plasticity transform temporal neural representations into spatial

 

 

2024 Fall Schedule

Date Presenter Paper
09/04 Braden Brinkman Synapse-type-specific competitive Hebbian learning forms functional recurrent networks
09/11 Jacob Crosser Low-Dimensional Spatiotemporal Dynamics Underlie Cortex-wide Neural Activity
09/18 Xiaoyu Yang Theory of Coupled Neuronal-Synaptic Dynamics
09/25 Tianshu Li Neural representational geometries reflect behavioral differences in monkeys and recurrent neural networks
10/02 Siwei Wang µSim: A goal-driven framework for elucidating the neural control of movement through musculoskeletal modeling
10/09 Srividya Pattisapu Flexible multitask computation in recurrent networks utilizes shared dynamical motifs
10/16 Allison George Reinforcement biases subsequent perceptual decisions when confidence is low, a widespread behavioral phenomenon
10/30 Yuhan Zhang Mice alternate between discrete strategies during perceptual decision-making
11/06 Siddharth Paliwal Spontaneous persistent activity and inactivity in vivo reveals differential cortico-entorhinal functional connectivity
11/13 Liam Lang Recurrent dynamics of prefrontal cortex during context-dependent decision-making
11/20 Tai Yuan Multiscale organization of neuronal activity unifies scale-dependent theories of brain function
12/04 Giancarlo La Camera Identifying and modulating neural signatures of stress susceptibility and resilience enables control of anhedonia

 

 

2022 Spring Schedule

Date Presenter Paper
1/26 Josue Nassar Reward-based training of recurrent neural networks for cognitive and value-based tasks
02/02 Kurt Butler Neural Dynamics Discovery via Gaussian Process Recurrent Neural Networks
02/09 Memming Park Coherent encoding of subjective spatial position in visual cortex and hippocampus
02/16 Thomas Grunauer Difference Target Propagation
02/23 Shahbegh Kalra Multiscale adaptive analysis of circadian rhythms and intradaily variability: Application to actigraphy time series in acute insomnia subjects
03/02 Matthew Dowling Opposing effects of selectivity and invariance in peripheral vision
03/09 Danielle Roedel Sparse Coding Models Can Exhibit Decreasing Sparseness while Learning Sparse Codes for Natural Images
03/16 [Spring Break]  
03/23 Siddharth Paliwal Winnerless competition in clustered balanced networks: inhibitory assemblies do the trick
03/30 Ayesha Vermani Sequential and efficient neural-population coding of complex task information
04/06 Tianshu Li Attractor-state itinerancy in neural circuits with synaptic depression
04/13 Irene Nozal Martin Sucrose intensity coding and decision-making in rat gustatory cortices
04/20 Tushar Arora Generalized Shape Metrics on Neural Representations
04/27 Dan Waxman Prefrontal cortex as a meta-reinforcement learning system
05/04 Jacob Crosser Representational geometry of perceptual decisions in the monkey parietal cortex

 

2021 Fall Schedule

Date Presenter Paper
09/08 Xiaoyu Yang Dynamic Population Coding of Category Information in ITC and PFC (2008)
09/15 Tong Liang Synaptic plasticity as Bayesian inference (2021)
09/22 Jacob Crosser Encoding in Balanced Networks: Revisiting Spike Patterns and Chaos in Stimulus-Driven Systems (2016)
09/29 Matthew Dowling Building population models for large-scale neural recordings: Opportunities and pitfalls (2021)
10/06 Tianshu Li Choice-relevant information transformation along a ventrodorsal axis in the medial prefrontal cortex
10/13 Ayesha Vermani Stabilization of a brain–computer interface via the alignment of low-dimensional spaces of neural activity
10/20 Tushar Arora Continual Learning Through Synaptic Intelligence
10/27 Siddharth Paliwal Emergence of Slow-Switching Assemblies in Structured Neuronal Networks
11/03 Piotr Sokol Targeted Neural Dynamical Modeling
11/10 Ian Jordan Area 2 of primary somatosensory cortex encodes kinematics of the whole arm
11/17 Khue Tran Burst-dependent synaptic plasticity can coordinate learning in hierarchical circuits
11/24 [Thanksgiving]  
12/01 Irene Nozal Martin Inhibitory connectivity defines the realm of excitatory plasticity