Event Detail (Archived)

Identifying Structure and Modeling Dynamics with Connectome Data

  • This event already took place in February 2026
  • Carson Family Auditorium (CRC)

Event Details

Type
Center for Studies in Physics and Biology Seminars
Speaker(s)
Ashok Litwin-Kumar, Ph.D., assistant professor, Columbia University
Speaker bio(s)

There is excitement about the use of synaptic wiring diagrams, or connectomes, for modeling neural computation, but there is also concern that the information a connectome provides is not sufficient to meaningfully constrain a model. My group has made efforts to understand the capabilities and limitations of this kind of data. I will describe a new method for identifying symmetries in connectome data that are suggestive of computations involving representations of variables of interest to an animal, such as ring or toroidal attractors. I will also describe a theory we have developed that characterizes the solution spaces of connectome-constrained recurrent networks and predicts when such networks exhibit degeneracies or unique solutions.

Open to
Public
Phone
(212) 327-8636
Sponsor
Melanie Lee
(212) 327-8636
leem@rockefeller.edu