The development of quantitative theories of learning, memory, and prediction is fundamental to understanding human cognitive processing. This workshop, to take place in Arlington VA, May 8-9, 2014, tackles a key scientific need: to integrate modern complex systems and network approaches with understanding cognitive function. Predictive models of higher order cognitive processes could inform the development of neuroprosthetics, facilitate advances in brain-computer interfaces, and assist in the construction of intervention protocols for cognitive deficits that accompany neurological disorders and psychiatric disease.
Understanding how the human brain works has emerged as a major international focus of research in the coming decade, identified as such in President Obama's State of the Union Address in February 2013 and further developed in President Obama's BRAIN initiative announced on April 2, 2013. This workshop will bring together systems neuroscientists, cognitive scientists, applied mathematicians, and theoretical physicists. The aim is to identify a set of achievable goals that integrate dynamic, quantitative theories of cognition with neuroscientific and theoretical avenues of research.
