Graduate Student / Postdoc Seminar

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Modeling Neuronal Network Dynamics

Speaker: Aaditya Rangan

Location: Warren Weaver Hall 1302

Date: Friday, October 4, 2013, 1 p.m.

Synopsis:

Networks of neurons in the brain are collectively capable of exhibiting a variety of interesting dynamical phenomena. The network's dynamics can be quite complicated, involving correlations across the neurons in the network and across time -- correlations which may not be obviously related to the architecture of the network itself. One of the challenges in neuroscience is to develop a language which can be used to parsimoniously describe these complicated dynamics -- i.e., a way of systematically 'coarse-graining' the network. In this presentation I will briefly review some of the standard methods for coarse-graining (e.g., mean-field reductions) and highlight the regimes for which they fail. I will also discuss some recent approaches I've tried, as well as possible directions for future work.