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
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
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.
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.
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.
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.
Explanations in terms of computations performed by networks of nodes with weighted connections and explanations in terms of representational spaces are
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
Establishing connections between neural connectivity and low-dimensional representational manifolds is possible in _________ of the neural circuits that support cognition.
Manifold and circuit approaches to cognition are inseparable
Agree
Disagree
Poll ended at .
A unifying perspective on neural manifolds and circuits for cognition - PubMed
Two different perspectives have informed efforts to explain the link between the brain and behaviour. One approach seeks to identify neural circuit elements that carry out specific functions, emphasizing connectivity between neurons as a substrate for neural computations. Another approach centres on …
Dan Levenstein
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