SUMMARY This proposal requests support for the Gordon Research Conference (GRC) on the Neurobiology of Cognition. The driving force behind the GRC is the rapid pace of convergent findings in molecular, cellular circuit and systems neuroscience, augmented by technical developments in cell-targeting, imaging, computation and brain-machine interfaces. As a result, there are rapidly evolving descriptions of neuronal circuits and dynamics, neurophysiological processes and computational principles that underpin cognitive functions. Together, these approaches that include different brain models, and levels of analyses and involve an interdisciplinary research community will get us closer to one of the ultimate goals of the field of cognitive neuroscience ? to explain human cognition. The overarching goal of this GRC is to promote communication and collaboration across relevant levels of analysis and among empirical scientists, theoreticians and technical development specialists, emphasizing the most recent findings. The associated GRS, held just prior to the GRC, is designed to provide opportunities for doctoral and post-doctoral trainees to communicate their most recent findings and perspectives, and to prepare them for more in-depth participation in the parent GRC that immediately follows. Along with recent findings in traditional ?core? areas such as memory and motor cognition, formal sessions will explore several new themes, including: 1) the role of subcortical structures such as the thalamus in perception and cognition, 2) a discussion on the many ways neural information may be encoded across different levels from local ensembles to large scale circuits, 3) an overview of recent developments to probe neural circuits beyond the traditional microelectrode recording including several brain models (rodents, non-human primates and humans), and 4) an exploration of the relation of our field to computer science and artificial intelligence. The program is highly interdisciplinary, bringing together behavioral, neuroimaging and electrophysiological techniques in humans and non-human animals with computational approaches that explicate empirical findings and construct realistic models to represent the developing picture of cognitive operations and guide future experimentation. The program also underscores novel, state-of-the-art experimental and theoretical approaches that promise to define fundamental principles of cognition, and to extend these to improved treatment of brain dysfunction. The format of the meeting promotes intensive interactions among investigators and trainees from different perspectives and analytic levels, and in particular, between experimentalists and theorists.

R13NS116969

2020-09-01

2021-08-31