This proposal requests funding for a workshop to be held at the Mediterranean Institute of Advanced Studies in Palma de Mallorca, Spain, on the topic of Coherent Behavior in Neuronal Networks. The workshop will bring together a diverse, international group of experimental and theoretical neuroscientists from the US and Europe and beyond, with the goal of providing an overview of new collaborations in this field and to promote new international collaborations and international linkages. The Spanish organizer, Manuel Matias, brings expertise in intrinsic noise and its effects on nonlinear dynamical systems and coupled dynamical systems, while the US side's research interests lie in the area of theoretical neuroscience and coherent network behavior. The intellectual merit of the workshop lies in the development of models that accurately explain the emergence and function of experimentally observed neuronal activity and in making predictions to guide future experimental investigations.
The broader impact of the workshop lies in the expansion of capabilities in areas where biological systems maintain superiority, such as machine vision and natural language understanding, and, for example, may aid in the design of advanced prosthetics that can be directly interfaced to the nervous system. The proposal includes funding for four researchers within six years of their Ph.D.s, six graduate students and one undergraduate student. This workshop will catalyze international collaborations between groups that have typically not collaborated and will result in an international research agenda and plans to seek funding for collaborative research. The workshop has also received support from the Spain's Higher Council for Scientific Research (CSIC).
