In preparation for our #CCN2023 @CogCompNeuro GAC next week, I’m going to do some polls here this week to take the temperature of the room. 🌡️

Very curious to see the range of answers so please pass it on 🔁🙏 and feel free to elaborate - we'll try to take any discussion into account at the workshop

📊🧵 #neuroscience #neurobuzz

https://gac.ccneuro.org/gacs-by-year/2023-gacs/2023-1

GACs - 2023-1

Reconciling the dichotomy between Sherringtonian and Hopfieldian views on neural computations Organizers & Speakers at CCN 2023: Dongyan Lin, McGill University Arna Ghosh, McGill University Jonathan Cornford, McGill University James Whittington, Stanford University Tatiana Engel, Princeton

First: cognition is best explained by a ___________ view?

(see: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41583-021-00448-6)

Sherringtonian
2.9%
Hopfieldian
54.3%
Neither
14.3%
Don’t get the difference
28.6%
Poll ended at .
Two views on the cognitive brain - Nature Reviews Neuroscience

Neuroscience can explain cognition by considering single neurons and their connections (a ‘Sherringtonian’ view) or by considering neural spaces constructed by populations of neurons (a ‘Hopfieldian’ view). In this Perspective, Barack and Krakauer argue that the Hopfieldian view has the conceptual resources to explain cognition more fully the Sherringtonian view.

Nature
The best explanations of cognitive phenomena will involve circuits made up of particular neuron to neuron connections realized by specific neurons with fixed biophysical identities and utilizing particular neurotransmitters to pass signals between them.
Agree
15.4%
Disagree
84.6%
Poll ended at .
The best explanations of cognitive phenomena will involve circuits made up of neuron to neuron connections realized by neurons with biophysical identities and utilizing neurotransmitters to pass signals between them.
Agree
29.6%
Disagree
70.4%
Poll ended at .
Cognitive phenomena are well-explained by computations performed by networks of nodes with weighted connections between them.
Agree
26.5%
Disagree
73.5%
Poll ended at .
The best explanations of cognitive phenomena will involve neural spaces that describe the massed activity of e.g. neural ensembles or brain regions, with a low-dimensional representational manifold embedded within them.
Agree
43.8%
Disagree
56.3%
Poll ended at .
Cognitive phenomena are well-explained by movement within representational spaces or transformations from one space to another.
Agree
62.5%
Disagree
37.5%
Poll ended at .
Explanations in terms of computations performed by networks of nodes with weighted connections and explanations in terms of representational spaces are
Complementary
86.2%
Competing
13.8%
Poll ended at .
An explanation for a cognitive phenomenon that appeals to the statistics of neural connections (e.g. low-dimensional connectivity structure) or their intrinsic properties (e.g. mixture of E and I cells) is
Sherringtonian
27.8%
Hopfieldian
33.3%
Either (depends on?…)
27.8%
Neither
11.1%
Poll ended at .
Explanations of cognitive phenomena in terms of neural manifolds can be causally tested without understanding their underlying mechanisms
Agree
56.5%
Disagree
43.5%
Poll ended at .
@dlevenstein good question