Statistics and Data Science Seminar: "Mathematical approaches to the study of the brain"

Gaia Tavoni, Washington University in Saint Louis

Abstract: Mathematics and physics provide powerful tools for addressing central questions in neuroscience. I will illustrate this through some examples taken from my past and present research. I will show how statistical mechanics methods based on the inference and simulation of graphical models allow reconstruction of the functional connectivity of neural circuits and extraction of informative patterns from high dimensional data. I will present several applications of these techniques: the identification of signs of learning and memory in neuronal recordings, the study of memory consolidation in the brain, and the study of the neurobiological mechanisms of economic choice (neuroeconomics). In the final part of the talk, I will introduce some new ideas to investigate, through the lens of information theory, the role of different forms of plasticity in the olfactory neural code.

Host: Nan Lin