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Distinguished Lecturer Series
Sponsored by the Arthur and Rochelle Belfer
Institute of Mathematics and Computer Science
Professor Philip Holmes
Princeton University
will speak on
Optimal decisions in the brain?
From neural oscillators to stochastic differential equations
Abstract
The sequential probability ratio test (SPRT) is optimal in that it allows one
to accept or reject hypotheses, based on noisy incoming evidence, with the
minumum number of observations for a given level of accuracy. There is
increasing neural and behavioral evidence that primate and human brains employ
a continuum analogue of SPRT: the drift-diffusion (DD) process. I will review
this and descibe how a biophysical model of a pool of spiking neurons can be
simplified to a phase oscillator and analysed to yield spike rates in response
to stimuli. These spike rates tune DD parameters. This study is a small step
toward the construction of a series of models, at different time and space
scales, linking neural spikes to human decisions.
This work is joint with Eric Brown, Jeff Moehlis, Rafal Bogacz and Jonathan
Cohen at Princeton, and Garry Aston-Jones' group at the Laboratory of
Neuromodulation and Behavior, University of Pennsylvania.
The lecture will take place in the Lecture Hall, Room 1,
Ziskind Building
on Tuesday, June 6, 2006
at 11:00
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