| THE
STUDY OF HUMAN BRAIN FUNCTION is arguably one of our society's most
important endeavors in this century. Although there has been an
explosive amount of research in basic neurobiology, progress in
understanding the integrated functioning of the brain remains a
significant scientific problem.
It is now clear that even "simple perception" is an act
of creation that involves many distributed brain regions, and discovering
the network interactions among these regions is important for understanding
a range of issues in neuroscience, psychology, neurology, and psychiatry,
as well as related fields such as computational intelligence and
philosophy. Essential for understanding human brain function is
a detailed knowledge of the spatio-temporal dynamics of neuronal
populations and their interactions during cognitive function.
The conference will explore the dynamics of distributed brain function
from multidisciplinary perspectives. It is being held to honor Professor
Walter Freeman for his contributions to brain dynamics over
the past five decades, on the occasion of his 80th birthday.
The
aims of this conference were as follows:
- To
present the audience with an overview of the present state of
research on brain dynamics from various perspectives, including
neurobiology, functional brain imaging, and cognitive science;
- To
target issues in the brain sciences for which progress may be
facilitated by the closer interaction of multiple disciplines;
- To
promote the application of tools from mathematical statistics,
network science, and neural network modeling to facilitate new
thinking about the dynamics of brain function;
- To
outline avenues of approach to the application of insights from
dynamical brain studies to clinical questions for the improved
development of biomarkers for disease diagnosis.
The conference agenda
will include the following major themes:
Cortical Network Dynamics
Brain Network Imaging
Brain Network Modeling
Cognitive Dynamics
We expect the conference to lead to an exchange of ideas and perspectives
from these themes and to an exploration of ways by which each can
be informed or constrained by the others.
The conference archives can be found here. |
