The Budapest Computational Neuroscience Forum is a series of informal monthly meetings of Budapest-based computational neuroscientists and computational cognitive scientists with the aim of facilitating discussion and cooperation among researchers working in different institutes and giving an opportunity to students to present their work and get to know the comunity. Originally started in 2007, restarted in 2017 and then again in 2023 the Forum is now regularly hosted by Central European University, and followed by a social event, both open to anyone interested.
Events of the Forum are advertised on a mailing list. If you wish to be on this list or have any inquiries about the series, contact Mihály Bányai.
Upcoming meeting:
Time: 17:00, December 12, 2023.
Location: CEU, 1051 Bp. Nádor u. 15, Room 203
Speaker: Máté Lengyel, Cambridge/CEU
Title: Optimal information loading into working memory explains dynamic coding in prefrontal cortex
Abstract: Working memory involves the short-term maintenance of information and is critical in many tasks. The neural circuit dynamics underlying working memory remain poorly understood, with different aspects of prefrontal cortical (PFC) responses explained by different putative mechanisms. By mathematical analysis, numerical simulations, and using recordings from monkey PFC, we investigate a critical but hitherto ignored aspect of working memory dynamics: information loading. We find that, contrary to common assumptions, optimal loading of information into working memory involves inputs that are largely orthogonal, rather than similar, to the late delay activities observed during memory maintenance, naturally leading to the widely observed phenomenon of dynamic coding in PFC. Using a novel, theoretically principled metric, we show that PFC exhibits the hallmarks of optimal information loading. We also find that optimal information loading emerges as a general dynamical strategy in task-optimized recurrent neural networks. Our theory unifies previous, seemingly conflicting theories of memory maintenance based on attractor or purely sequential dynamics, and reveals a normative principle underlying dynamic coding.
Recent meetings of the Forum:
November 15, 2023. András Ecker (EPFL): Long-term plasticity induces sparse and specific synaptic changes in a biophysically detailed cortical model
October 25, 2023. Ferenc Csikor (Wigner Institute): Top-down perceptual inference shaping the activity of early visual cortex
October 4, 2023. Gábor Lengyel (University of Rochester): A General Method for Testing Bayesian Models Using Neural Data
September 1, 2023. Emmanuel Procyk (INSERM Lyon): Prefrontal neuronal dynamics, timescales, and behavioural flexibility
May 31, 2023. Atilla B. Kelemen (KOKI): Geometry of remapping in the hippocampus reflects task structure
April 26, 2023. Anna Székely (Wigner Institute): Identifying transfer learning in the reshaping of inductive biases
March 29, 2023. Merse Előd Gáspár (CEU): Discovering the internal predictive model of infants based on eye movements