This program will allow scientists committed to quantitative approaches to problems in neuroscience to come to the Marine Biological Laboratory to work and interact among themselves and other members of the neuroscience community. The goals are to focus on experimental and theoretical issues related to the large-scale dynamics of nervous systems. The workgroup will focus on issues that arise in two complementary areas critical to the understanding of brain function. The first involves advanced signal processing methods relevant to neuroscience, particularly those appropriate for emerging multi-site recording techniques and noninvasive imaging techniques. The second involves the development of a calculus to study the dynamical behavior of nervous systems and the computations they perform. The workgroup will enable a close collaboration between experimentalists and theorists, particularly with regard to the analysis of data and the planning of experiments. The workgroup will meet annually for 3 weeks with 30-40 participants, split between senior and junior researchers, both experimentalists and theorists. The workgroup will have limited research lectures supplemented by tutorial lectures on the relevant mathematical and computational techniques. It is expected that researchers will spend the major fraction of their time collaboratively analyzing data, using state-of-the-art workstations and software, and discussing their results. This workgroup will provide a means to critically evaluate techniques for the processing of multi-channel data, of which imaging forms an important category. Such techniques are of critical importance for basic research and medical diagnostics. An attempt will be made to establish a repository of these techniques, along with benchmarks. A successful workgroup will insure the rapid dissemination of modern analytical techniques throughout the neuroscience community.
