NCS-FO: Data-driven modeling of visual cortex

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One of the great challenges of modern neuroscience is a comprehensive theory of the function of the cerebral cortex. The overall aim of the present project is to answer this challenge with a new model of the visual cortex. The modeling process will lead to the discovery of common, canonical neural mechanisms behind a multitude of visual phenomena, giving special emphasis to canonical computations that are performed not just in the visual cortex but also in other regions of the cerebral cortex. The project aims to enhance understanding of cortical function by looking beyond structure to study the dynamics of cortical activity. An important part of the project's broader impact will be to provide interdisciplinary training for young researchers in response to society's need for an educated workforce with multi-disciplinary skills bridging mathematics and neurobiology. Additionally, the principal investigators will reach out to broad scientific audiences as well as high school students. Specifically, the results of this project will be disseminated by giving invited scientific lectures to national and international scientific meetings. The investigators also participate in university-sponsored outreach events for New York City-area high school students, such as the annual C-Splash lectures at the NYU Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences. This project adopts an integrative strategy to apply ideas from dynamical systems theory to theoretical neuroscience. The project will construct a next-generation model of the visual cortex that is realistic and comprehensive in the way it reproduces the dynamics of cortex and its visual functions. The model will be constrained by hundreds of sets of visual neuroscience data and by all that is known about cortical neuroanatomy. Such a model is a tool to advance neuroscience and a step toward building robotic intelligent systems that emulate human perception. The visual cortex will be modeled as a large network of spiking, conductance-based neurons. It will be analyzed as a complex dynamical system. Specific projects are: 1) network models of local circuitries; 2) extended models of the visual cortex covering a substantial portion of the visual field, and 3) dynamical interactions on neuronal scale to perceptual organization of two- and three-dimensional objects. The modeling and analysis will have wide impact beyond visual cortex in studies of the functional, dynamical consequences of canonical computations that are performed throughout the cerebral cortex. This project is funded by Integrative Strategies for Understanding Neural and Cognitive Systems (NSF-NCS), a multidisciplinary program jointly supported by the Directorates for Computer and Information Science and Engineering (CISE), Education and Human Resources (EHR), Engineering (ENG), and Social, Behavioral, and Economic Sciences (SBE). This award is co-funded by the Division of Mathematical Sciences in the Directorate for Mathematical and Physical Sciences (MPS).