Confirmed Speakers

Keynote:
SusanaMartinez-Conde &
 SteveMacknik, Barrow

Systems Neuroscience
WolfSinger, MaxPlank, Frankfurt
GarrettStanley, Georgia Tech
AnnaRoe, Vanderbelt
TatyanaSharpee, Salk
GyorgyBuzsaki, Rutgers

Neural Architectures
DavidvanEssen, Washington U
AlessandraAngelucci, U Utah
RobertMarc, U Utah
JudithHirsch, USC

Theory & Models
FritzSommer, UC Berkeley
SimonThorpe, CNRS
RistoMiikkulainen, U Texas, Austin
LaurentItti, USC
BrunoOlshausen, UC Berkeley

Advanced Functional Imaging
JackGallant, UC Berkeley
Michelle Espy, LANL
DavidHolder, Univ. College London
DonTucker, EGI
RosalynMoran, Univ. College London

Neural Interfaces
MiguelNicolelis, Duke
BradleyGreger, U Utah
LarsSchwabe, University of Rostock,
MarkHumayun, USC
John George, LANL

Synthetic Processing
TomasoPoggio, MIT
LuisBettencourt, LANL
PascalFries, ESI, Frankfurt
EdConnor, Johns Hopkins
ThomasSerre, Brown


Strategic Neuroscience
MichaelWeisend, MIND
StevenBrumby, LANL
PaulRhodes, Evolved Machines
AnneE. Speed, Sandia
Matthew Marinella, Sandia
Brandon S Minnery, IARPA

This workshop seeks to identify and define present opportunities and remaining obstacles that must be exploited or overcome in order to achieve a comprehensive, functional understanding of biological neural processing systems. The working premise of the meeting is that our present understanding of biological neural processing has reached a stage where fundamental advances can best be achieved by integrating existing ideas from neuroscience and computation into systems-level synthetic processing models and neuromimetic architectures. This second Grand Challenge workshop brings together systems neuroscientists who are unveiling key neural processing principles with theorists who are attempting to integrate them into functional models. We add to this mix scientist and engineers who are developing and applying advanced technologies for dynamic imaging of neural function, as well as high density interfaces to read out or encode information in large neural populations. Ultimately, a functional understanding of biological neural processing systems will promote the development of models and algorithms that exhibit cognitive behavior as well as as the design of novel neuromimetic architectures and application systems. The strategic potential of applied neuroscience will be addressed at the end of the workshop in concert with interested sponsors and stake holders.

Grand Challenge Questions

1) Are we close to understanding systems-level neural computation?  Why or Why not?

2) What are the key scientific challenges or technologies for achieving an understanding of neural computation?

3) Are there applications for neuromimetic processing that can lead to better technologies immediately? What are they?

These questions are deliberately left vague and their interpretation is left entirely to each speaker.  Our hope is that plenary speakers will use this small workshop as an opportunity to present more speculative notions about how truly Neuromimetic Information Processing and (ultimately) Synthetic Cognition might be achieved and what it will look like.

 

Location:

The conference will be located at the La Posada de Santa Fe Resort in Santa Fe, New Mexico.  Please visit the Local Info tab for more information.

Travel Grants:

Travel grants are available for qualifying participants.  Please see the Registration Tab for more information.