The Centre for Theoretical Neuroscience was recently established at the University of Waterloo. The Centre is a growing research initiative of the University. The Centre consists of several labs focused on various areas of theoretical neuroscience (aka computational neuroscience). At present, the Centre consists of faculty members from Applied Mathematics, Biology, Psychology, Engineering, Philosophy, Statistics, Computer Science, and their students. The Centre has established a unique Graduate Program in theoretical neuroscience and hosts a regular academic colloquium series. The Centre also hosts the annual public Waterloo Brain Day lectures.
News
Thought Process Podcast Interviews several CTN members.
Thought Process a podcast by UWloo alumnus Jack MacKinnon features conversations with CTN members:
Chris Eliasmith featured on the "Street Talk" podcast
CTN Founding Director Chris Eliasmith discusses if AI can ever be truly conscious on the Machine Learning Street Talk podcast.
Sue Ann Campbell is President Elect of the Canadian Applied and Industrial Mathematics Society
Sue Ann Campbell is President Elect of the Canadian Applied and Industrial Mathematics Society. CAIMS represents applied and industrial mathematics in Canada. The society has become a significant presence in industrial, scientific, and technological circles within and outside of Canada.
Events
CTN Seminar Eva Dyer
Prof. Eva Dyer (home page) will present on her work on Thursday, March 6, 3:30 p.m. in E5 2004.
Scaling Up Neural Data Pretraining to Uncover Shared Structure in Brain Function
The brain is incredibly complex, with diverse functions that emerge from the coordinated activity of billions of neurons. These functions vary across brain regions and adapt dynamically as we engage in different tasks, process sensory information, or generate behavior. Yet, each neural recording captures only a small glimpse of this immense complexity, offering a limited view of the broader system. This motivates the need for an algorithmic approach to stitch together diverse datasets, integrating neural activity across brain regions, cell types, and individuals. In this talk, I will present our work on building scalable models pretrained on a broad corpus of neural recordings. Our findings demonstrate positive transfer across tasks, cell types, and individuals, effectively bridging gaps between isolated studies. This unified framework opens new possibilities for neural decoding, brain-machine interfaces, and cross-species neuroscience, offering a path toward more generalizable models of brain function.
Mark Reimers Centre for Theoretical Neuroscience Seminar
Mark Reimers, Michigan State (https://iq.msu.edu/mark-reimers/)
Location: E5 2004
Title: TBD
Abstract: TBD
Brain Day 2023 Videos On-line
The videos from Brain Day 2023 are now available on line at our youtube channel. Hope you enjoy.
CTN Masters Student Graduate Sugandha Sharma Appears on Generally Intelligent Podcast
Sugandha Sharma, masters student graduate of the University of Waterloo's CTN, discusses her research and time in the laboratory of CTN Founding Director Chris Eliasmith as well as her current PhD research at MIT on the Generally Intelligent Podcast. Give it a listen.
Sue Ann Campbell Presents at International Conference on Mathematical Neurosci 2022
Sue Ann Campbell (Applied Math/CTN core member) recently presented "Modulation of Synchronization by a Slowly Varying Current" in July 2022 at the International Conference on Mathematical Neuroscience; Watch it on YouTube
CTN Research Day 2023 Oct 17 16:30 - 19:00 QNC 0101
The Centre for Theoretical Neuroscience will be hosting its second Research Day. This will be a chance to start the new academic year by getting re-acquainted with each other and the diversity of research conducted by CTN core and affiliate faculty. The format will be to have a number of CTN faculty share short overviews of their lab's and projects (16:30-17:30) and then, following a short coffee break (17:30-18:00), hear from a dozen current graduate students and post-docs giving short three minute talks on an aspect of their current research (18:00-19:00).
Bots and Beasts. New book by CTN Founding Member Paul Thagard
Paul Thagard, philosopher, cognitive scientist, Killam prize winner, and founding CTN member has a new book out: Bots and Beasts.
