Graduate Student / Postdoc Seminar

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Can dynamical systems models help us understand the brain?

Speaker: Lai-Sang Young, Courant Institute, New York University

Location: Warren Weaver Hall 1302

Date: Friday, November 14, 2025, 1 p.m.

Synopsis:

I would like to think that they can, and will illustrate by sharing some work my collaborators and I have done on the monkey visual system, which is very similar to that of humans. Specifically, I will focus on two visual properties: one is used in the detection of edges, the other is relevant when our eyes track moving objects. To explain the origin of these properties, simple mathematical ideas were first developed in idealized settings. They were then tested (and fine-tuned) in simulations using dynamical network models that are biologically more realistic.