Statistical Analysis and Modeling

of Response Dependencies in Neural Populations

A NIPS 2008 Workshop, December 12-13, 2008

The Hilton Whistler Resort & Spa: Mt. Currie N

Sponsored by the Bernstein Center for Computational Neuroscience

Organizers: Arno Onken (Primary Contact), Klaus Obermayer, Valentin Dragoi, Steffen Grünewälder, Denise Berger

Goal of the workshop:

It is well known that sensory and motor information is represented in the activity of large populations of neurons. Encoding and decoding is subject of active research. The two dominant theories of neural coding are rate and temporal coding. They are studied by considering the dependencies between responses of several neurons. In the typical theoretical framework, response dependencies are characterized by correlation coefficients and cross-correlograms. The main goal of this workshop is to challenge the dependency concepts that are typically applied and to disseminate more sophisticated concepts to a wider public. It will bring together experts from different fields and encourage exchange of insights between experimentalists and theoreticians.

Issues to be discussed:

• How important are response dependencies for neural coding?
• What are the consequences of simplified assumptions?
• How should response dependences be measured?
• How do we generate parametric models based on recorded data?
• Discrete vs. continuous descriptions of neural activity: Which description is more appropriate?
• What are the limitations of experimental and analytical methods that we currently face? What can be done to overcome them?