Bi/CNS 221 - Computational Neuroscience

9 units (4-0-5); third term. Prerequisites: Bi/CNS 150 or CNS 187, or instructor's consent.

Instructor: Wolfgang Einhäuser
Date: Tuesdays and Thursdays 7:00-8:30pm
Location: Moore 080
TA: William Ford

Lecture and discussion aimed at understanding computational aspects of information processing within the nervous system. The course will emphasize single neurons and how their biophysical properties relate to neuronal coding, i.e., how is information actually represented in the brain at the level of action potentials. Topics include biophysics of single neurons, signal detection and signal reconstruction, information theory, population coding and temporal coding in sensory systems of invertebrates and in primate cortex. Students are required to hand in three homeworks and participate in the debates.

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Literature:
C. Koch. Biophysics of Computation: Information Processing in Single Neurons.
P. Dayan and L.F. Abbott. Theoretical Neuroscience: Computational and Mathematical Modeling of Neural Systems.
W. Gerstner and W.M. Kistler. Spiking Neuron Models. (available online here)

Syllabus and Handouts:
Handouts will come in two parts:
The unedited ppt-file used in the lecture and
An edited version of part of the material presented on the whiteboard and/or during recitation. ('notes')
Neither is meant as "stand-alone" material, but only as service in addition to the lecture. For some lectures we will provide edited handouts, which eventually will replace those files.

Date	Topics	Slides/Handouts	Homework	Textbook chapters	Additional Reading
03/28/2006 (6:30pm!)	Introduction, Membrane equivalent circuit, Ohm's and Kirchhoff's laws, Nernst equation, GHK equation	unedited ppt-file notes		Koch 1, DA 5.1-5.3, GK 2.1
03/30/2006	Shunting inhibition, gain normalization, cable equation, solutions infinite cable, Green's function	unedited ppt-file		Koch 2, DA 6.3	Carandini and Heeger, Science 1994
04/04/2006	Finite and branched cables	unedited ppt-file		Koch 3, D&A 6.3
04/06/2006	Transfer resistances, morphoelectrotonic transform, modelling synapses, interaction on passive dendrites, "dirty" artihmetics	unedited ppt-file	Set I (corrected)	Koch 3-5	Zador, Agmon-Snir, Segev, 1995
04/11/2006	Proof of Reciprocity; Hodgkin-Huxley model of AP generation; Connor-Stevens model; propagation of APs along the axon; effect of myelination on propagation speed	unedited ppt-file		Koch 6, DA 5.6,6.2; GK 2.2	Hodgkin and Huxley, 1952 (5x)
04/13/2006	Action Potential II (phase space analysis)	unedited ppt-file		Koch 7, DA 7.5, GK 3
04/18/2006	FitzHugh-Nagumo (cont'd): stability of fixed points; spike response models; from detailed to simplified neuronal models; latency code, synchronous vs. asynchronous input	unedited ppt-file	HW I due	GK 4; Koch 14; DA 7.1-7.2;
04/20/2006	Noise; Renewal systems; firing rate; Poisson process; ISI; Noise spectrum; Poisson process with refractory period; CV; Fano-factor; random walk model	unedited ppt-file		GK 5, Koch 14,15
04/25/2006	Recent Papers: Naundorf et al.; Schneidman et al. Plasticity, PPF, LTP/LTD, Hebbian learning	unedited ppt-file	Set II	Koch 13	Naundorf et al. (2006); Schneidman et al. (2006)
04/27/2006	Hebbian Learning, Correlation Rule, Covariance Rule, Oja's rule, local learning rules, BCM-rule, ocular dominance, orientation selectivity	unedited ppt-file		Koch 13; DA 8;GK 10.1, 10.2
05/02/2006	trace rule, SFA; spike timing dependent plasticity (STDP): physiology, theory, examples: direction selectivity, complex cells; stimulus timing dependent plasticity: shifts in orientation selectivity (physiology and psychophysics)	unedited ppt-file		GK 10.3	Földiak, 1991; Markram et al.,1997;Bi and Poo, 1998; Buchs and Senn, 2001; Yao and Dan, 2001
05/04/2006	Dendritic Computation II: Spines, active dendrites	unedited ppt-file		Koch 12,19; DA 6.4
05/09/2006	Dendritic Computation III: Active Dendrites	unedited ppt-file		GK 10.4; Koch 19	Häusser and Mel, 2003.
05/11/2006	Temporal Learning rules II - From plasticity to coding: response speed, place coding, conditioning / reward anicipation, sequence laerning, LSMs, 'Anti-Hebbian'-STDP, sound localization	unedited ppt-file	HW II due	GK 12	Mehta et al., 2000; Wyss et al., 2006; Suri and Scultz, 2001; Gerstner et al., 1993; Maass et al., 2002; Roberts and Bell, 2000; Gerstner et al., 1998;
05/15/2006 (Monday)	Calcium (class taught by W. Ford)	pdf-file		Koch 8,9; DA 6.2
05/16/2006	Dendritic Computation III (class taught by W. Ford)	pdf-file	Set III matlab-src	Koch 12,19; DA 6.4
05/23/2006	A Primer on Neuromorphic AVLSI	unedited ppt-file			more on neuromorphic AVLSI can be found here
05/25/2006	Summary
05/30/2006	No class		HW III due (noon!)

Wolfgang Einhäuser-Treyer

Last modified: Thu May 25 18:01:24 PDT 2006