Colloquium Series 2017-2018

Jorn Diedrichsen
Brain and Mind Institute
University of Western Ontario

The Brain’s GPU? In Search of the Cerebellum’s Universal Transform

The cerebellum exhibits a highly specialized and uniform neuronal circuitry, which likely evolved to solve very specific problems in sensory-motor control. In the human brain, the cerebellar circuitry has dramatically expanded, and it contributes here to virtually every possible cognitive function. But what is this elusive computation that the cerebellum contributes to cortical processing? I will show some insights from our research on motor control and learning, which shows that the cerebellum is critically involved in prediction and fast error-based learning. I will then talk about the first steps that we have recently taken to test computational theories about the function of the cerebellum across different cognitive domains using functional imaging.