This October the Centre for Developmental Neurobiology's NEUReka! team and the Sainsbury Wellcome Centre will be hosting their second joint symposium, this year entitled:

From synapses to behaviour: what is the quantum of neural computation?

Currently there is no agreement between neuroscientists as to what can be described as a computational unit of the brain. Historically, single neurons have claimed the title as the functional unit of the nervous system, whilst more modern imaging methods have pointed towards neuronal ensembles as being a more robust feature to focus on. Furthermore, the participation of glia in information encoding has been largely ignored and others argue that a more thorough decomposition of behaviour is necessary before we can even begin to understand the brain’s computation.

More often than not, the cross-talk between researchers working on these different levels of abstraction is quite sparse, and we believe bringing researchers together to discuss these questions will help promote collaboration and further our understanding on the important questions in neuroscience that can’t be solved just by looking from one point of view.

We are delighted to announce the following speakers:

Yoh Isogai (University College London)
Elisa Galliano (Cambridge University)
Victoria Gonzalez (Burrone Lab, King's College London)
Pablo Izquierdo (Attwell Lab, University College London)
Nick Steinmetz (Carandini/Harris Lab, University College London)
Konstantinos Lagogiannis (Meyer Lab, King's College London)

Programme

13:00 - 13:15: Welcome

13:15 - 13:45: Dr. Yoh Isogai, UCL

13:45 - 14:15: Dr. Elisa Galliano, Cambridge

14:15 - 14:45: Refreshments

14:30 - 15:30: Focus talks:

Ms. Victoria Gonzalez - Single Neurons
Mr. Pablo Izquierdo - Glia
Dr. Nick Steinmetz - Networks
Dr. Konstantinos Lagogiannis - Behaviour

15:30 - 17:30: Discussions

17:30 - onwards: Food and Drinks

IMPORTANT: the museum is not open to the general public, but welcomes all researchers (all institutions, all disciplines etc). Please register for the event using an affiliated email address, and bring your university/research ID card.

Organisation

NEUReka! is a PhD student and postdoc association created with the purpose of organizing an informal and discussion-heavy seminar series focused on increasing proximity between world-leading neuroscientists and young researchers. Currently we run a seminar series which focuses on discussing interesting questions regarding brain function and development, we hope our seminars will pique your curiosity and set alight your scientific creativity. NEUReka! seminar series are part of the Department of Developmental Neurobiology, King’s College London, programme of external seminars.

A newly formed SWC PhD society participates in the organization of various symposia and events that bring together neuroscientists from the UK and abroad. Our goal is to form new scientific collaborations, facilitate discussions and learn from the world's leading systems neuroscience researchers. The SWC PhD society is funded by the Sainsbury Wellcome Centre for Neural Circuits and Behaviour at University College London.

What is the quantum of neural computation?