I am co-organizing the Physics of Neural Systems focus session at the APS March Meeting 2023 in Las Vegas. Submit your abstract now!
Physics of Neural Systems – session number 04.01.31:
Neural systems are a fascinating source of challenging problems for physicists, attracting a wide range of approaches to understand the emergence of cognition and intelligent behavior. From an empirical perspective, modern recording techniques continuously motivate the development of new methods for analyzing, modeling, and interpreting highly complex data, collected in increasingly naturalistic settings. In parallel, physics approaches stimulate the design of new experiments by generating normative theories of brain computation. Finally, a complementary approach to understanding intelligent systems is provided by artificial neural networks and machine learning. These systems have reached superhuman performance on a range of well-constrained tasks, but still lack the robustness and versatility of animal learning. This Focus Session welcomes this diversity of approaches, with the goal of enhancing communication and synergy within a highly interdisciplinary community. We hope the session will spur discussion and exchange of ideas on how neural systems represent and process information to enable robust learning.
Philipp Fleig 