Colloquium Speaker Maynak Mehta - (UCLA) today, Tuesday, September 16, 2014 @ 4:00pm

[Patterson, Robin L.]

Please take note of Colloquium taking place today, Tuesday, September 16, 2014 at 4:00 PM in The Robert Smith Seminar Room. There will be a reception in the Atrium at 3:45PM. Details concerning the talk are as follows:

Speaker:              Mayank Mehta (UCLA)
Date:                     Tuesday, September 16, 2014
Time:                     4:00 PM
Place:                    1080 Physics Research Building, The Robert Smith Seminar Room
Title:                     Neurophysics of Space, Time and Memory


Abstract:  All animals move in space as a function of time. Space and time are abstract concepts because they can neither be directly felt nor readily controlled. How does the brain, or the ensemble of neurons, create a perception of space and time? Individual neurons in a few key brain regions are selectively active a function of the subject's position in space and past experience. The biophysical mechanisms governing such neural maps of space and time have remained elusive. Hence, we have developed a noninvasive, immersive and multisensory virtual reality system where precisely controlled stimuli determine the surrounding virtual space. Using this apparatus we have measured the activities of thousands of individual neurons, developed analysis techniques to decipher the emergent neural ensemble dynamics, and generated computational models that can explain this neural dynamics as a function of virtual space. This integrative approach has provided a neuro-physical understanding of how ensembles of neurons generate basic concepts such as position, relative distance, speed, continuity and memory. Surprisingly, internally generated, neural oscillations are crucial for these computations.

The website for the colloquium is https://physics.osu.edu/physics-colloquium-schedule.



Robin
[The Ohio State University]
Robin Patterson
Undergraduate Program Coordinator
Department of Physics
1040K Physics Research Building, 191 W. Woodruff Avenue, Columbus, OH 43210
(614) 292-8523 Office     (614) 292-7557 Fax
patterson.716 at osu.edu<mailto:patterson.716 at osu.edu> osu.edu<http://osu.edu/>

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