Monday, October 20, 2014 3:30 pm
-
3:30 pm
EDT (GMT -04:00)
David
R.
Cheriton
School
of
Computer
Science
University
of
Waterloo
3:30pm,
Monday,
October
20
DC
1302
Reception
to
follow,
4:30-5:30pm
DC
1301
Abstract:
You
have
about
86
billion
neurons
in
your
head.
Those
neurons
fire
spikes
of
electrical
activity
to
convey
information
to
each
other,
and
to
move
your
muscles.
It
seems
simple
enough,
until
you
consider
the
scale
of
the
problem.
Among
those
billions
of
neurons
are
approximately
100
trillion
connections.
Scientists
are
increasingly
uncovering
functional
organization
in
the
brain
by
recording
patterns
of
spikes
from
various
brain
regions.
But
we’re
in
need
of
theoretical
models
of
the
brain
that
match
the
observed
patterns,
while
simultaneously
performing
meaningful
computations.
In
this
talk,
I
will
outline
some
of
the
computational
approaches
we
use
to
model
and
simulate
brain
systems,
all
in
an
attempt
to
reverse-engineer
the
brain.