2000 Cold Spring Harbor Course on Computational Neuroscience:Vision, June 15 - 28, 2000

Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, Cold Spg Hbr NY

Investigators

Abstract

COLD SPRING HARBOR LABORATORY COURSE ON COMPUTATIONAL NEUROSCIENCE: VISION JUNE 2000 AND JUNE 2002 SUMMARY The Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory will give a short 2 week course on Computational Neuroscience: Vision from June 15 - June 28, 2000, and during the summer of 2002. Computational approaches to neuroscience have produced important advances in our understanding of how nerve cells are connected to and communicate with each other. The basis of the course is to study how computer models can best simulate aspects of the nervous system. The course emphasizes that an understanding of the computational problems in conjunction with perceptual and biological data can help guide research in neuroscience. Through a combination of lectures and hands-on computer laboratory exercises, this course will cover different aspects of the function of the visual system. These include problems such as: the neural basis of color vision, pattern vision, and visual motion perception; oculomotor function; and visual attention/decision-making. This course has now been taught 6 times over the past 12 years as part of an integrated set of courses at Cold Spring Harbor in a number of areas of neurobiology. This year there will be a new emphasis on theories and computational models of the neural basis of visually guided behavior and decision-making, a burgeoning area of neuroscience. Lectures in the course will be given by the organizers and by invited lecturers who are working on current research frontiers and are leaders in their field. The course is intended for graduate students, post-doctoral fellows and faculty. The course, like other Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory courses, is aimed at teaching novel technologies and approaches. These are state-of-the-art techniques that are often not yet taught in standard courses offered by universities and medical schools. The short duration of the courses also makes it possible for busy scientists to attend. In the case of the Computational Neuroscience course, computer modeling of the nervous system is an important approach to analyzing how nerve cells communicate. The nervous system is very complex with very large numbers of cells. Computer programs that make models of how nerve cells work can make predictions and guide analysis of nerve cell function. Conversely, results from biological experiments can be incorporated into computer models. Because the visual system is one of the best-studied parts of the nervous system, there is a maximal interplay between computational and biological approaches. Thus the Computational Neuroscience course uses the visual system as a model.