Conference Description
No known object is as complex as the human brain. It is now clearer than ever before that if scientists are to comprehend its operational principles, particularly those underlying the more abstract aspects of cognition, they must apply a multidisciplinary approach. The sessions within the 2022 Gordon Conference for the Neurobiology of Cognition span inter-related areas of cognitive, systems, and computational neuroscience most relevant for understanding how brain circuits give rise to our abilities to think, feel, act, decide, plan, and learn.
The conference is designed to spark new avenues for discussion among participants with diverse scientific backgrounds whose paths might not normally cross. Individual sessions draw upon a mix of approaches for studying neural circuits at multiple spatial and temporal scales, in both humans and animal models, and the mechanisms by which such circuits give rise to cognition and behavior. The program brings together the latest techniques and approaches including electrophysiology of neural populations, imaging of neural circuits at multiple spatial scales and in concert with novel molecular tools, interrogation of the human brain via neuroimaging and electrophysiology, and computational approaches inspired by rapid advances in artificial intelligence and machine learning. Much attention is given to the recent explosion in data acquisition methods, and the capacity to analyze enormous datasets using increasingly sophisticated computational approaches. A persistent question in the background is how the elaborate architecture of the brain, governed by fundamental electrical, molecular, and mathematical principles, supports our subjective experience and directs our external behavior. The confluence of perspectives at this meeting, with diverse scientists called together to consider the most important topics in cognitive neuroscience, promises to cast new light on some of the most challenging and fascinating questions about how the brain works.
The topics, speakers, and discussion leaders for the conference sessions are displayed below. The conference chair is currently developing their detailed program, which will include the complete meeting schedule, as well as the talk titles for all speakers. The detailed program will be available by March 26, 2022. Please check back for updates.
Keynote Session: Attention and Working Memory
Discussion Leaders
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Elisabeth Murray (National Institute of Mental Health, NIH, USA)
Speakers
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Robert Desimone (Massachusetts Institute of Technology, USA)
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Kia Nobre (University of Oxford, United Kingdom)
Subcortical Contributions to Cognition
Discussion Leaders
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Helen Barbas (Boston University, USA)
Speakers
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Farran Briggs (University of Rochester, USA)
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Michael Halassa (Massachusetts Institute of Technology, USA)
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Richard Krauzlis (National Eye Institute, NIH, USA)
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Yuri Saalmann (University of Wisconsin-Madison, USA)
Cognitive Computations in Brains and Machines
Discussion Leaders
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Xiao-Jing Wang (New York University, USA)
Speakers
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Tatiana Engel (Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, USA)
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Daniel Yamins (Stanford University, USA)
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Joshua Tenenbaum (Massachusetts Institute of Technology, USA)
Beyond the Microelectode: New Approaches for Probing Circuits of Cognitio
Discussion Leaders
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Christopher Harvey (Harvard Medical School, USA)
Speakers
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Denise Cai (Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, USA)
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Jessica Cardin (Yale University, USA)
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John Maunsell (The University of Chicago, USA)
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Jude Mitchell (University of Rochester, USA)
Neurophysiology of Human Cognition
Discussion Leaders
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Rony Paz (Weizmann Institute of Science, Israel)
Speakers
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Randolph Helfrich (University of Tuebingen, Germany)
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Robert Knight (University of California, Berkeley, USA)
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Lila Davachi (Columbia University, USA)
Neural Mechanisms of Memory
Discussion Leaders
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Tatiana Pasternak (University of Rochester, USA)
Speakers
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Christos Constantinidis (Wake Forest School of Medicine, USA)
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Earl Miller (Massachusetts Institute of Technology, USA)
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Anna Schapiro (University of Pennsylvania, USA)
Motor Cognition
Discussion Leaders
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Charles Schroeder (Columbia University, USA)
Speakers
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Michele Basso (University of California, Los Angeles, USA)
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Mark Churchland (Columbia University, USA)
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Karel Svoboda (Howard Hughes Medical Institute, USA)
Neural Encoding: Convergence and Controversy
Discussion Leaders
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Stephanie Palmer (University of Chicago, USA)
Speakers
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Brent Doiron (University of Pittsburgh, USA)
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Ila Fiete (Massachusetts Institute of Technology, USA)
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Stefano Fusi (Columbia University, USA)
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Jennifer Groh (Duke University, USA)
Cognitive Maps
Discussion Leaders
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Talia Konkle (Harvard University, USA)
Speakers
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Danielle Bassett (University of Pennsylvania, USA)
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Elizabeth Buffalo (University of Washington, USA)
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Sylvia Wirth (Centre de Neurosciences Cognitives (CNC), CNRS, France)
The GRC Power Hourâ„¢
Organizers:
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Sabine Kastner (Princeton University, USA)
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Joni Wallis (University of California, Berkeley, USA)