The PIs and Co-PIs of grants supported through the NSF-NIH-BMBF Collaborative Research in Computational Neuroscience (CRCNS) program meet annually. This ninth meeting of CRCNS investigators brings together a broad spectrum of computational neuroscience researchers supported by the program, and includes poster presentations, talks, plenary lectures, and discussions. The meeting is scheduled for June 9-11, 2013 and is hosted by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
This grant was used to fund the annual PI (Principal Investigator) meeting for the NSF program on Collaborative Research in Computational Neuroscience (CRCNS). The overall goal of the program is to foster collaborations between experimental and theoretical/computational neuroscientists in order to tackle highly challenging and interdisciplinary problems in the field of neuroscience. Computational and quantitative approaches to the study of the brain and nervous system have always been a part of neuroscience. However, their role has dramatically expanded over the last decade due to recent advances in the ability to collect large data sets, to create and run large-scale simulations of complex physical systems, and to use machine learning techniques either in the analysis of data or in the modelling of neural systems. Given the complexity of neural systems in terms of the number of interacting elements, it is hard to imagine understanding any aspect of brain function without incorporating a signiifcant component of computation. The conference was designed to reflect the goals and principles of the overall CRCNS program. Compared to more traditional conferences, we pursued the following course: 1) Each talk was given by at least one theoretician and one experimentalist speaking jointly on the same project or theme In this way, a complex problem could be presented to the audience from multiple, though complementary, perspectives. 2) The ratio of time devoted to the speaker presentations as compared to the time reserved for audience discussion and questions was 2-1. In this way, we could avoid the more standard "show-and-tell" type presentations and have the speakers engage the audience in meaningful dialogue. We view this feature as particularly important, because the research is often ongoing at a PI conference where a grant is still in progress, and the speakers can benefit from audience feedback. 3) The invited talks focused on identification and consideration of the some of the most fundamental issues in neuroscience. We think this is important given the fact that neuroscience, unlike chemistry or physics, is not yet a mature field with a well-established paradigm. Therefore, pushing the bounds of what is known through novel and innovative hypothesis formation assumes a critical role in the scientific development of the field, even if -- as is always the case in science -- some of those hypotheses turn out to be wrong. The entire conference proceedings are currently made available on the website of the McGovern Institute for Brain Research at http://mcgovern.mit.edu/mit-events/event/15025838?month=2013-06
