Introduction to Computational Neuroscience

We will follow the first six chapters of the book very closely, and the later chapters more sketchily.

Dayan, Peter, and L. F. Abbott. Theoretical Neuroscience: Computational and Mathematical Modeling of Neural Systems . Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2001. ISBN: 9780262041997.

Wessel, R., C. Koch, and F. Gabbiani. “Coding of time-varying electric field amplitude modulations in a wave-type electric fish.” J of Neurophysiology 75, no. 6 (1996): 2280-93.

Press, William H., Brian P. Flannery, Saul A. Teukolsky, and William T. Vetterling. “Fitting Data to a Straight Line.” In Numerical Recipes in C: The Art of Scientific Computing. New York, NY: Cambridge University Press, 1992. ISBN: 9780521431088.

Press, William H., Brian P. Flannery, Saul A. Teukolsky, and William T. Vetterling. “Convolution and Deconvolution Using the FFT.” In Numerical Recipes in C: The Art of Scientific Computing. New York, NY: Cambridge University Press, 1992. ISBN: 9780521431088.

Optional Lecture 1

Press, William H., Brian P. Flannery, Saul A. Teukolsky, and William T. Vetterling. “Correlation and Autocorrelation Using the FFT.” In Numerical Recipes in C: The Art of Scientific Computing. New York, NY: Cambridge University Press, 1992. ISBN: 9780521431088.

Palmer, Stephen E. Vision Science - Photons to Phenomenology_ ._ Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1999, pp. 146-154. ISBN: 9780262161831.

Optional Lecture 2

Optional Lecture 3

Gallistel, C., T. Mark, A. King, and P. Latham. “The Rat Approximates an Ideal Detector of Changes in Rates of Reward.” Journal of Experimental Psychology: Animal Behavior Processes 27 (2001): 354-372.

Herrnstein, R. “On the Law of Effect.” Journal of the Experimental Analysis of Behavior 13, no. 2 (March 1970): 243-266.

Herrnstein, R., and D. Prelec. Melioration: A Theory of Distributed Choice. The Journal of Economic Perspectives 5, no. 3 (Summer, 1991): 137-156.

Lec #: 8 · TOPICS: Games 1 · READINGS: Camerer, Colin F. Behavioral Game Theory. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2003. ISBN: 9780691090399.

Optional Lecture 4

Sanfey, A., J. Rilling, J. Aronson, L. Nystrom, and J. Cohen. “The Neural Basis of Economic Decision-Making in the Ultimatum Game.” Science 300, no. 5626 (June 13, 2003): 1755-8.

Camerer, C. “Strategizing in the Brain.” Science 300, no. 5626 (June 13, 2003): 1673-5.

Johnston, Daniel, and Samuel Miao-Sin Wu. Foundations of Cellular Neurophysiology . Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1994, chapter 2. ISBN: 9780262161831.

Koch, Christof. Biophysics of Computation, Information Processing in Single Neurons. New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 2004, chapter 6. ISBN: 9780195181999.

Lec #: 19 · TOPICS: A-type Potassium Channels, Calcium-Dependent Potassium Channels · READINGS: Dayan, and Abbott. Section 6.2.

Lec #: 20 · TOPICS: Synapses · READINGS: Dayan, and Abbott. Section 5.8.

Optional Lecture 5

Hopfield, J. J. “Neural networks and physical systems with emergent collective computational abilities.” Proc Natl Acad Sci U.S.A. 79: 2554-58.

Miyashita, Y. “Neuronal correlate of visual associative long-term memory in the primate temporal cortex.” Nature 335 (1988): 817-20.

Griniasty, M., M. V. Tsodyks, and D. J. Amit. “Conversion of temporal correlations between stimuli to spatial correlations between attractors.” Neural Comput 5 (1993): 1-17.

Amit, D. J. “The Hebbian paradigm reintegrated: local reverberations as internal representations.” Behav Brain Sci 18 (1995): 617-26.

Nakazawa, K., M. C. Quirk, R. A. Chitwood, et al. “Requirement for Hippocampal CA3 NMDA Receptors in Associative Memory Recall.” Science 297 (2002): 211-218.

_PubMed abstract: _ Virtual reality (VR) and event-related functional magnetic resonance imaging were used to study memory for the spatial context of controlled but lifelike events. Subjects received a set of objects from two different people in two different places within a VR environment. Memory for the objects, and for where and from whom they were received was tested by putting the subject back into a place in the company of a person and giving a paired forced choice of objects. In four conditions objects had to be chosen according to different criteria: which was received in that place, which was received from that person, which object was recognized, and which object was widest. Event-related functional magnetic resonance imaging was performed during testing to identify areas involved in retrieval of the spatial context of an event. A network of areas was identified consisting of a temporoparietal pathway running between the precuneus and parahippocampi via retrosplenial cortex and the parieto-occipital sulcus, left hippocampus, bilateral posterior parietal, dorsolateral, ventrolateral and anterior prefrontal cortices, and the anterior cingulate. Of these areas the parahippocampal, right posterior parietal, and posteriodorsal medial parietal areas were specifically involved in retrieval of spatial context compared to retrieval of nonspatial context. The posterior activations are consistent with a model of long-term storage of allocentric representations in medial temporal regions with translation to body-centered and head-centered representations computed in right posterior parietal cortex and buffered in the temporoparietal pathway so as to provide an imageable representation in the precuneus. Prefrontal activations are consistent with strategic retrieval processes, including those required to overcome the interference between the highly similar events. Copyright 2001 Academic Press.

Davachi, L., J. Mitchell, D. L. Schacter, and A. D. Wagner. “Remember the Source: Evidence for Distinct Rhinal and Hippocampal Encoding Processes.” 2001. (Submitted)

Dobbins, I. G., H. J. Rice, D. L. Schacter, and A. D. Wagner. “Isolating Retrieval Orientation from Retrieval Success: fMRI Evidence for Separable Contributions to Episodic Recogntion.” 2001. (Submitted)

_PubMed abstract: _ This chapter presents a conceptual model of the representational and executive functions of the cortex of the frontal lobe derived from empirical evidence obtained principally in the monkey. According to this model, the neuronal networks of the frontal lobe that represent motor or executive memories are probably the same networks that cooperate with other cerebral structures in the temporal organization of behavior. The prefrontal cortex, at the top of the perception-action cycle, plays a critical role in the mediation of contingencies of action across time, an essential aspect of the temporal organization of behavior. That role of cross-temporal mediation is based on the interplay of two short-term cognitive functions: one retrospective, of short-term memory or sensory working memory, and the other prospective, of attentive set (or motor working memory). Both appear represented in the neuronal populations of dorsolateral prefrontal cortex. At least one of the mechanisms for the retention of working memory of either kind seems to be the reentry of excitability through recurrent cortical circuits. With those two complementary and temporally symmetrical cognitive functions of active memory for the sensory past and for the motor future, the prefrontal cortex secures the temporal closure at the top of the perception-action cycle.

_PubMed abstract: _ We have investigated the human neural systems for visual working memory using functional magnetic resonance imaging to distinguish sustained activity during memory delays from transient responses related to perceptual and motor operations. These studies have identified six distinct frontal regions that demonstrate sustained activity during memory delays. These regions could be distinguished from brain regions in extrastriate cortex that participate more in perception and from brain regions in medial and lateral frontal cortex that participate more in motor control. Moreover, the working memory regions could be distinguished from each other based on the relative strength of their participation in spatial and face working memory and on the relative strength of sustained activity during memory delays versus transient activity related to stimulus presentation. These results demonstrate that visual working memory performance involves the concerted activity of multiple regions in a widely distributed system. Distinctions between functions, such as perception versus memory maintenance, or spatial versus face working memory, are a matter of the degree of participation of different regions, not the discrete parcellation of different functions to different modules. Copyright 2000 Academic Press.

_PubMed abstract: _ The prefrontal cortex (PFC) plays a fundamental role in internally guided behavior. Although it is generally accepted that PFC subserves working memory and executive control operations, it remains unclear whether the subregions within lateral PFC support distinct executive control processes. An event-related fMRI study was implemented to test the hypothesis that ventrolateral and dorsolateral PFC are functionally distinct, as well as to assess whether functional specialization exists within ventrolateral PFC. Participants performed two executive control tasks that differed in the types of control processes required. During rote rehearsal, participants covertly rehearsed three words in the order presented, thus requiring phonological access and maintenance. During elaborative rehearsal, participants made semantic comparisons between three words held in working memory, reordering them from least to most desirable. Thus, in addition to maintenance, elaborative rehearsal required goal-relevant coding of items in working memory (“monitoring”) and selection from among the items to implement their reordering. Results revealed that left posterior ventrolateral PFC was active during performance of both tasks, whereas right dorsolateral PFC was differentially engaged during elaborative rehearsal. The temporal characteristics of the hemodynamic responses further suggested that dorsolateral activation lagged ventrolateral activation. Finally, differential activation patterns were observed within left ventrolateral PFC, distinguishing between posterior and anterior regions. These data suggest that anatomically separable subregions within lateral PFC may be functionally distinct and are consistent with models that posit a hierarchical relationship between dorsolateral and ventrolateral regions such that the former monitors and selects goal-relevant representations being maintained by the latter. Copyright 2001 Academic Press.