Roberto Lent é professor titular e diretor do Instituto de Ciências Biomédicas da Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro. Artigo publicado no jornal O Globo de 20 de janeiro.

A imprensa noticia regularmente as grandes dificuldades burocráticas que retardam fortemente a importação de materiais e equipamentos para os laboratórios de pesquisa brasileiros. São atrasos enormes na liberação pela Receita Federal ou pela Anvisa, exigências numerosas de documentos e documentos, às vezes causando a deterioração de substâncias caras e preciosas por armazenamento inadequado, e outras (muitas!) dificuldades. Um caso recente envolveu o meu instituto, e foi noticiado pelo O Globo há poucos dias.

As importações – talvez o público não saiba – são essenciais para o andamento dos trabalhos em laboratório, porque a nossa indústria não tem ainda a diversificação e a especialização técnica para produzir os itens que precisamos – reagentes, materiais, equipamentos e etc. Por conta disso, precisamos importar. Mas com as exigências da Receita Federal e outros órgãos, um experimento pensado por um cientista pode ficar paralisado muitos meses pela demora em conseguir trazer para o laboratório os insumos adequados, mesmo quando temos recursos financeiros para fazer a compra no exterior.

A razão: as importações para a pesquisa são livres de impostos, mas tratadas burocraticamente do mesmo modo que as importações comerciais que as empresas brasileiras fazem para comercialização ou uso em suas fábricas. É preciso apresentar muitos documentos (muitos mesmo!) para liberar os itens importados. E não é por algum capricho ou espírito de perseguição dos órgãos controladores dos aeroportos. É porque não existe diferenciação entre uma coisa e outra – as importações científicas e as comerciais.

A questão, entretanto, é simples de conceituar, e também simples de resolver. Bastaria vontade política para isso. Conceitualmente, o País precisa decidir se deseja alavancar a ciência, a tecnologia e a inovação para o seu desenvolvimento. Há indicadores de que a opinião pública recebe bem essa ideia, e o governo federal nos últimos anos tem correspondido com recursos crescentes e medidas muito positivas. Então, se é isso que todos desejamos, cumpre dar aos pesquisadores instrumentos especiais para a obtenção de insumos para o seu trabalho.

Como resolver o impasse? Talvez seja mais simples do que pensamos. O País atribuiria “passe livre” para os pesquisadores brasileiros credenciados pelas agências de fomento do Ministério da Ciência, Tecnologia e Inovação (pesquisadores 1A, segundo a classificação do CNPq). A ideia do passe livre funcionaria assim: todos os documentos necessários seriam apresentados como mandam a legislação e as normas, mas “a posteriori”, ou seja, depois da liberação dos materiais importados. A Receita não os reteria nos aeroportos como faz hoje, mas os liberaria de imediato, sob a responsabilidade dos pesquisadores credenciados, que posteriormente apresentariam os documentos e se responsabilizariam legalmente pela sua utilização nos projetos de pesquisa.

Haveria malfeitos? Pouco provável. Os recursos de que os pesquisadores dispõem para a compra de insumos não permitem a compra de grandes quantidades, diferentemente das empresas que importam para comercialização. Além disso, todos os documentos seriam apresentados em um prazo pré-determinado depois da entrada dos produtos importados, conforme as exigências legais, e desse modo as irregularidades poderiam ser facilmente identificadas e corrigidas, sem prejuízo para o andamento das pesquisas.

Talvez seja necessário alterar a legislação de algum modo, ou pelo menos as normas da Receita Federal, Anvisa e outras entidades. Mas, se o País reconhecer que a ideia do “passe livre” fomentaria decisivamente a ciência e a tecnologia, repercutindo no desenvolvimento social e econômico, a tarefa de mudar a legislação passa a ser quase uma obrigação dos parlamentares e autoridades envolvidas. A decisão política, nesse caso, é fundamental. As mudanças burocráticas correspondentes são apenas consequências da primeira. E, convenhamos, é possível implementá-las. Nesse caso, querer é poder.

The aim of the Okinawa Computational Neuroscience Course is to provide opportunities for young researchers with theoretical backgrounds to learn the latest advances in neuroscience, and for those with experimental backgrounds to have hands-on experience in computational modeling.

We invite graduate students and postgraduate researchers to participate in the course, held from June 11th through June 29th, 2012 at an oceanfront seminar house of the Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology. Applications are through the course web page only; they will open January 9th and close February 12th, 2012. Applicants are required to propose a project at the time of application. Applicants will receive confirmation of acceptance in March.

Like in preceding years, OCNC will be a comprehensive three-week course covering single neurons, networks, and behaviors with ample time for student projects. The first week will focus exclusively on methods with hands-on tutorials during the afternoons, while the second and third weeks will have lectures by international experts. Students receive individualized tutoring for their projects. We invite those who are interested in integrating experimental and computational approaches at each level, as well as in bridging different levels of complexity.

The sponsor will provide lodging and meals during the course and support travel for those without funding. We hope that this course will be a good opportunity for theoretical and experimental neuroscientists to meet each other and to explore the attractive nature and culture of Okinawa, the southernmost island prefecture of Japan.

Invited faculty:
• Abbott, Larry
• Arbuthnott, Gordon
• Bialek, William
• Buzsaki, Gyorgy
• Canavier, Carmen
• De Schutter, Erik
• Diesmann, Markus
• Doya, Kenji
• Häusser, Michael
• Ishii, Shin
• Izhikevich, Eugene
• Kuhn, Bernd
• Lee, Daeyeol
• Marder, Eve
• Stephens, Greg

Organizing Committee
Larry Abbott (Columbia Univ.),
Sue Ann Campbell (Univ. Waterloo),
Nancy Kopell (Boston Univ.), Frances
Skinner (TWRI/UHN and Univ Toronto),
David Terman (Ohio State Univ.)

REGISTRATION IS OPEN

See http://www.fields.utoronto.ca/programs/scientific/11-12/neurodisease/ for more details

Parkinson’s Disease Workshop: May 22-23, 2012
Schizophrenia Workshop: May 24-25, 2012
Epilepsy Workshop: May 29-30, 2012
Alzheimer’s Disease/Pharmaceuticals Workshop: May 31-June 1, 2012
Anesthesiology/Sleep Disorders Workshop: Jun 4-5, 2012

Additional Travel Awards available for members of the Organization for Computational Neuroscience (OCNS)

Synopsis

Millions of people suffer from some form of neurological disease, and abnormalities in brain circuits and their activities are recognized as a place to focus in untangling brain disorders. Oscillations and dynamic behaviour produced by neuronal circuits are being examined in the context of several neurological diseases today. While the functional aspect of the observed dynamics is not entirely clear, it is clear that cellular aspects of circuits need to be included in these examinations as specific cell types have been associated with network dysfunction and neurological disease. A mechanistic understanding, as can be brought about by mathematical modeling and analyses, is needed to help advance our understanding of these complex neurological diseases. However, developing and analyzing models of normal and pathological dynamic activities in these complex circuits is highly challenging. This is not only because of the complexity and detail of the systems themselves, but also because of the required multi-disciplinary aspect of the work. How does one include cellular detail in mathematical models to allow linkage to experiment and neurological disease? What techniques and methods can and should be used to analyze the models? These difficult questions need to be brought to the fore to allow us to move forth in our understanding and to provide insights that would be helpful from diagnostic and drug development perspectives.

In a series of workshops we will bring together neuroscientists, mathematicians, clinicians and experimentalists to present and consider these problems from several viewpoints. Speakers in the workshops will present from clinical, experimental, modeling, and mathematical perspectives.Goals for this program include: (i) encouraging trainees in mathematics, physical sciences, life sciences, and interdisciplinary studies, especially new researchers and mathematicians, to get involved in this exciting and challenging field of research, (ii) making neuroscientists more aware of the mathematical tools available to aid with the study of network models, (iii) making mathematicians more aware of the challenges involved in modeling biological networks, and (iv) initiating collaborations.
–
Frances Skinner, PhD
TWRI/UHN and Univ Toronto
http://www.uhnres.utoronto.ca/labs/skinner/

RIKEN Brain Science Institute 2012 Summer Program
URL: http://www.brain.riken.go.jp/en/summer/index.html
Schedule:
http://www.brain.riken.go.jp/en/summer/schedule.html
Application
form: http://www.brain.riken.go.jp/en/summer/applying.html

Application
deadline; Feb 29th, 2012, 17:20p.m. (JST)
Internship: June 13 – August 8

Lecture Course: July 3 – July 9

Every summer, RIKEN Brain Science Institute (Wako, Japan; nearby Tokyo) organizes the international summer school. The short summary of the summer school this year is attached below. Application guideline, further information of the coming and past summer schools and etc are on the above URL.

The RIKEN Brain Science Institute (RIKEN BSI), located just outside Tokyo, Japan, offers a summer program to train advanced students interested in brain function. Applicants may choose either a two-month laboratory internship (Plan A) within a RIKEN BSI laboratory, or an intensive 7-day lecture course (Plan B) featuring a distinguished international faculty. Those participating in the internship may also enroll in the lecture course.

For questions, please send any general inquiry not to me but to the adminstration or organizing committee of the summer school shown in the above summer school, while you can send me an inquiry at itninfo@brain.riken.jp,if it is specifically about my laboratory (lab URL: http://www.itn.brain.riken.jp)

For Plan A (internship), you can check host laboratory at http://www.brain.riken.go.jp/en/summer/host.html.

For Plan B (lecture course), here I append the information:

“The Collective Brain: How does the dynamics of collective interaction of neurons make our mind work?”

In this course, we would like to place our emphasis on the interaction or coordination of different components of the brain that allows it to function as an integrated system for controlling cognition, memory and behavior. Our emphasis is also on how the malfunctioning of these mechanisms might lead to abnormal states of the brain.

Invited Lecturers (tentative)

Francesco Battaglia, University of Amsterdam
Joshua Berke, University of Michigan
Laura Colgin, University of Texas at Austin
Gustavo Deco,Universitat Pompeu Fabra
Howard Eichenbaum, Boston University
Joshua Gordon, Columbia University
Gilles Laurent, The Max Planck Institute for Brain Research
Shigetada Nakanishi, Osaka Bioscience Institute
Paul Phillips, University of Washington
Geoffrey Schoenbaum, University of Maryland
Erin Schuman, The Max Planck Institute for Brain Research
Jeff Wickens, OIST
Matthew Wilson, MIT

———————————
Hiro Nakahara
Lab for Integrated Theoretical Neuroscience
RIKEN Brain Science Institute
2-1
Hirosawa Wako
Saitama, 351-0198, Japan
Email: hn@brain.riken.jp
Lab webpage: http://www.itn.brain.riken.jp/

Register and pay before January 30th to take advantage of the fee!

Please visit the Congress website: www.sbbc.org.br/iccb for regularly updated information about the Congress.

Comunico publicação do Edital para seleção de Professor junto ao Departamento de Ciências Fisiológicas – IB, UnB, na área de Neurociências da Visão e Cognição em Primatas. Ver Edital anexo.

Solicito ampla divulgação entre possíveis interessados.

Att.

Prof. Carlos Tomaz

 CFS – Neurociências da visão e cognição em primatas – Edital n_ 31-2012 – DOU_doc _1_

Montevideo, 29 de Abril de 2012.

En documento adjunto se encuentra el programa preliminar del ISN Satellite Symposium.

Muchas gracias,
Cordiales saludos,
María Castelló
Co-organizadora

–
María E. Castelló, PhD
Investigador Asistente
Depto. de Neurociencias Integrativas y Computacionales
IIBCE
Montevideo, URUGUAY

Mathematicians Reveal Serial Killer’s Pattern of Murder

Posted: 15 Jan 2012 09:10 PM PST

A simple mathematical model of the brain explains the pattern of murders by a serial killer, say researchers

On 20 November 1990, Andrei Chikatilo was arrested in Rostov, a Russian state bordering the Ukraine. After nine days in custody, Chikatilo confessed to the murder of 36 girls, boys and women over a 12 year period. He later confessed to a further 20 murders, making him one of the most prolific serial killers in modern history.

Today, Mikhail Simkin and Vwani Roychowdhury at the University of California, Los Angeles, release a mathematical analysis of Chikatilo’s pattern of behaviour. They say the behaviour is well characterised by a power law and that this is exactly what would be expected if Chikatilo’s behaviour is caused by a certain pattern of neuronal firing in the brain.

Their thinking is based on the fundamental behaviour of neurons. When a neuron fires, it cannot fire again until it has recharged, a time known as the refractory period.

Each neuron is connected to thousands of others. Some of these will also be ready to fire and so can be triggered by the first neuron. These in turn will be connected to more neurons and so on. So it’s easy to see how a chain reaction of firings can sweep through the brain if conditions are ripe.

But this by itself cannot explain a serial killer’s behaviour. “We cannot expect that the killer commits murder right at the moment when neural excitation reaches a certain threshold. He needs time to plan and prepare his crime,” say Simkin and Roychowdhury.

Instead, they suggest that a serial killer only commits murder after the threshold has been exceeded for a certain period of time.

They also assume that the murder has a sedative effect on the killer, causing the neuronal activity to drop below the threshold.

Simkin and Roychowdhury used their model to simulate the pattern of firing in a brain to see how often it surpasses a given threshold long enough for a murder to take place.

In the model, they used a 2 millisecond period as the fundamental time step, that’s about the time between firings in a real neuron. And they simulated some 100 billion time steps, equivalent to 12 years or so, that’s about the period that Chikatilo was active.

The results are remarkably similar to the distribution of Chikatilo’s real murders and Simkin and Roychowdhury speculate that it would be relatively straightforward to introduce a realistic correction factor that would make the fit closer.

They say: “One could enhance the model by introducing a murder success rate. That is with certain probability everything goes well for the killer and he is able to commit the murder as he planned. If not, he repeats his attempt the next day. And so on.”

This model leads to an interesting insight into the nature of serial killing. It suggests that the likelihood of another killing is much higher soon after a murder than it is after a long period has passed.

That’s a well known property of power law distributions that holds true for all kinds of phenomenon. A large earthquake, for example, is more likely soon after another large earthquake.

Interestingly, Simkin and Roychowdhury’s work bares much similarity to other recent work suggesting that the distribution of epileptic fits also follows a power law. The reasoning here is the same too–that patterns of neuronal firing can spread through the brain, like an avalanche, causing a fit in the process.

This suggests an obvious avenue for future research in working out whether other forms of extreme behaviour, and indeed ordinary behaviour, follow the same pattern. Perhaps these guys and others are already working on the data.

Chikatilo was eventually convicted of 52 murders and executed by a gunshot to head in 1994.

Ref: arxiv.org/abs/1201.2458: Stochastic Modeling Of A Serial Killer

Para mais literatura sobre avalanches neuronais, ver:

É interessante observar que, na medida que uma nova comunidade científica começa a usar o arXiv, as submissões crescem de forma sigmoidal, até uma saturação proporcional ao tamanho da comunidade. Acho que está na hora da comunidade de Neurociência teórica e computacional usar mais o arXiv (muitos jã estão usando). Talvez um dia, exista um mega arXiv, com preprints de neurociencia e biologia (já existe a seção de Biologia Quantitativa). Afinal, o X do arXiv significa que “A Verdade está lá fora…”

Siga o seguinte algoritmo:

1. Faça um paper (ou pelo menos assine um).

2. No dia em que estiver submetendo o paper para a revista, entre no site do arXiv ( a menos que você ache que seu paper é muito revolucionário – ou mal escrito – para alguma revista publicar).

3. Leia as instruções de como colocar um paper no arXiv que estão aqui.

4. Siga as instruções e coloque seu paper ao arXiv.

arXiv

From: e-prints@arxiv.org
To: leonardo@****
Sent: Monday, January 16, 2012 2:10:11 AM
Subject: arXiv Replacement -> 1109.2036 in q-bio.NC from leonardo@****

Your replacement of 1109.2036 by submission submit/******* has
been published and is available at:

http://arxiv.org/abs/1109.2036

The paper password for this article is: *****
Please share this with your co-authors. They may use it to claim ownership.

Abstract will appear in today’s mailing as:

arXiv:1109.2036
From: Leonardo L. Gollo <leonardo@ifisc.uib-csic.es>
Date: Fri, 9 Sep 2011 15:03:09 GMT   (77kb)
Date (revised v2): Fri, 13 Jan 2012 20:10:34 GMT   (668kb)

Title: Statistical Physics approach to dendritic computation: The
excitable-wave mean-field approximation
Authors: Leonardo L. Gollo, Osame Kinouchi and Mauro Copelli
Categories: q-bio.NC
Comments: 30 pages, 8 figures
Journal-ref: Phys. Rev. E, 85, 011911 (2012)
DOI: 10.1103/PhysRevE.85.011911

We analytically study the input-output properties of a neuron whose active
dendritic tree, modeled as a Cayley tree of excitable elements, is subjected to
Poisson stimulus. Both single-site and two-site mean-field approximations
incorrectly predict a non-equilibrium phase transition which is not allowed in
the model. We propose an excitable-wave mean-field approximation which shows
good agreement with previously published simulation results [Gollo et al., PLoS
Comput. Biol. 5(6) e1000402 (2009)] and accounts for finite-size effects. We
also discuss the relevance of our results to experiments in neuroscience,
emphasizing the role of active dendrites in the enhancement of dynamic range
and in gain control modulation.

O Instituto Internacional de Neurociências de Natal Edmond e Lily Safra abriu vagas de pós-doutorado.

Mais informações no site: http://www.natalneuro.org.br/

Atenciosamente,

Instituto Internacional de Neurociências de Natal Edmond e Lily Safra

R. Prof. Francisco Luciano de Oliveira, 2460 – Candelária

59066-060 – Natal – RN

posgraduacao@natalneuro.org.br

Primeiro aluno da UFMG a ser selecionado para o programa, que seleciona por ano não mais que 15 doutorandos das América Latina e Caribe, Lazaroni é vinculado Núcleo de Neurociências (NCC) no Instituto de Ciências Biológicas (ICB). Sua área de pesquisa é a memória, com orientação da professora Grace Schenatto Pereira.

Thiago Lazaroni – graduado em medicina e biologia, e mestre em fisiologia e farmacologia – terá sua participação na Argentina integralmente custeada pela entidade americana, e ainda recebeu bolsa para o maior congresso do setor no mundo, que este ano será realizado em Nova Orleans, no sul dos Estados Unidos.
Fonte: UFMG

PS: Thiago Nascimento Lazaron recebeu apoio da SBNeC para participar do Congresso de SFN deste ano e lá foi selecionado para o Ricardo Miledi Neuroscience Training.

Imaginei que fosse do interesse o conhecimento.

Maiores infos:
Campo de Conhecimento: Genética Neurocomportamental

Processo: 23080.022864/2011-04
Número de vagas: 01 (uma)
Classe: Adjunto 1
Regime de Trabalho: Dedicação Exclusiva/DE

https://php.coperve.ufsc.br/cpdo/editais/130DDPP2011.pdf

Karin Kieling.

Não sei se isto tem muito a ver, mas reproduzo abaixo meu post sobre o Papai Noel Quântico, do SEMCIENCIA.

Papai Noel Quântico

If you want your children to be intelligent, read them fairy tales. If you want them to be more intelligent, read them more fairy tales.

Chegando o Natal começa aquela ladainha sobre Jesus e Papai Noel, meus amigos cristãos reclamando que o capitalismo coloca Papai Noel na frente de Jesus e alguns dos meus amigos ateus hateando que tanto Papai Noel como Jesus são personagens igualmente míticos. Ah sim, também tenho amigos que não falam nem de Jesus nem de Papai Noel para seus filhos pequenos e os presentes de Natal são dados ou em homenagem ao Deus-Sol Apolo Invictus – no solstício de verão que cairá no dia 22 de Dezembro às 5:30 h neste ano, ou no dia de Reis, 6 de janeiro, não sei exatamente por quê. 

Meus filhos não receberam educação religiosa mas acho que sabem pelo menos quem é Davi (ou pelo menos, como Davi venceu o gigante Golias, de modo que eles, sendo baixinhos, também não deveriam ter medo dos grandões). E, claro, foram educados acreditando em Papai Noel e Coelhinho da Páscoa.

Lembro-me de um jantar maravilhoso na época de Natal onde Leonardo, Raphael e eu discutíamos sobre como é possível Papai Noel entrar na nossa casa, dado que ela não tinha chaminé. Aventei a hipótese de teletransporte, acho que falei também sobre a possibilidade de um Papai Noel quântico que pudesse, numa superposição de estados, estar em todas as casas das crianças ao mesmo tempo.

Algumas pessoas me criticaram por encher as cabeças dos meus filhos de mitos, fantasias e ficção científica. Bom, minha desculpa é que eu sigo o preceito de Einstein acima, afinal quero que meus filhos sejam inteligentes e criativos.

Isso parece ter dado certo: Mariana (18)  sempre foi a melhor aluna da classe e cursou todo o ensino médio sem pagar nada, pois ganhou uma bolsa num vestibulinho em que ficou em primeiro lugar entre 100 candidatos. Juliana (15) acaba de ler Kant (depois de passar por Spinoza e Aristóteles). Dado que ela tem apenas 15 anos, acho que é um feito (eu mesmo li muito poucos desses autores). Mariana e Juliana acabam de passar na primeira fase da FUVEST, o que me parece promissor, dado que Mariana namorou e vagabundeou o ano todo – segundo suas próprias palavras, e Juliana está ainda no segundo ano e não fez cursinho.

Leonardo (10) ganhou recentemente uma medalha de prata em uma Olimpíada de Matemática. Já Raphael (8) saiu-me com essa quando tinha seis anos de idade: “Papai, confesse, Bicho Papão não existe!” “Sim, meu filho, Bicho Papão é uma história que as mães usam para fazer as crianças ir pra cama mais cedo…” “Hummm… sim, porque eu nunca vi um Bicho Papão! Agora, fale a verdade mesmo: você me mandou trancar a porta do carro por causa do Ladrão, mas Ladrão também não existe! Eu também nunca vi um!”

Sim, Raphael é meio empirista e positivista lógico: na época ele ainda acreditava em Coelho da Páscoa dado que havia amplas evidências observacionais – ovos de Páscoa, rastros do Coelho pela casa, evidências televisivas etc. Preciso ensinar para esse menino que Popper destruiu tanto o Empirismo quanto o Positivismo.

Assim, sigo o mestre Einstein e sugiro fortemente que eduquem seus filhos usando contos de fadas (a série sobre tecnofadas Artemis Fowl é um bom começo, muito melhor que Harry Potter). Se você discorda de mim, eu fico com apenas três hipótese: ou você não tem filhos, ou se acha mais esperto que Einstein ou tem os alelos AA ou AG no gene OXTR para o receptor de Oxitocina… provavelmente os três!

ADVANCED COURSE IN COMPUTATIONAL NEUROSCIENCE, 17th Edition (A FENS-IBRO Training Center)

July 30 – August 24, 2012
Bedlewo, Poland

Applications accepted: January 9, 2012 – April 2, 2012

SCIENTIFIC DIRECTORS:

* Dieter Jaeger (Emory University, Atlanta, USA)
* Máté Lengyel (University of Cambridge, UK)
* Yifat Prut (Hebrew University, Jerusalem, Israel)
* Carl van Vreeswijk (CNRS, Université Paris Descartes, France)

LOCAL ORGANIZERS:

* Daniel Wojcik (Nencki Institute of Experimental Biology, Warsaw, Poland)
* Tiaza Bem (Institute Of Biocybernetics and Biomedical Engineering, Warsaw, Poland)

This year for the second time the Advanced Course in Computational Neuroscience (ACCN) will be held at the Mathematical Research and Conference Center (MRCC) of the Institute of Mathematics of the Polish Academy of Sciences in the village Bedlewo in Poland.

The ACCN is for advanced graduate students and postdoctoral fellows who are interested in learning the essentials of the field of computational neuroscience.

The course has two complementary parts. Mornings are devoted to lectures given by distinguished international faculty on topics across the breadth of experimental and computational neuroscience. During the rest of the day, students pursue a project of their choosing under the close supervision of expert tutors. This gives them practical training in the art and practice of neural modeling.

The first week of the course introduces students to essential neurobiological concepts and to the most important techniques in modeling single cells, synapses and circuits. Students learn how to solve their research problems using software such as MATLAB, NEST, NEURON, Python, XPP, etc. During the following three weeks the lectures cover networks and specific neural systems and functions. Topics range from modeling single cells and subcellular processes through the simulation of simple circuits, large neuronal networks and system level models of the brain. The course ends with project presentations by the students.

The course is designed for students from a variety of disciplines, including neuroscience, physics, electrical engineering, computer science, mathematics and psychology. Students are expected to have a keen interest and basic background in neurobiology as well as some computer experience. Students of any nationality can apply.

Essential details:
* Course size: thirty students.
* Fee (which covers lodging, meals and excursions): EUR 1500.
* Scholarships and travel stipends are available.

* Application start: January 9, 2012
* Application deadline: April 2, 2012
* Deadline for letters of recommendation: April 9, 2012
* Notification of results: May, 2012

Information and application
http://www.neuroinf.pl/accn

Contact address:

* Daniel Wojcik
Nencki Institute of Experimental Biology
3 Pasteur St
02-093 Warsaw
Poland

* email: accn@nencki.gov.pl

PRELIMINARY FACULTY LIST

Ad Aertsen, University of Freiburg, Germany
Erik De Schutter, OIST, Japan
Alain Destexhe, UNIC CNRS, France
Quentin Huys, UCL, UK
Dieter Jaeger, Emory University, USA
Máté Lengyel, University of Cambridge, UK
Carole Levenes, Paris Descartes University, France
Germán Mato, Centro Atómico Bariloche, Argentina
Israel Nelken, Hebrew University, Israel
Yifat Prut, Hebrew University, Israel
Magnus Richardson, University of Warwick, UK
John Rinzel, New York University, USA
Ronen Segev, Ben-Gurion University, Israel
Peggy Seriès, University of Edinburgh, UK
Gašper Tkačik, IST Vienna, Austria
Krzysztof Turlejski, Nencki Institute, Warsaw
Carl van Vreeswijk, Paris Descartes University, France
Daniel Wójcik, Nencki Institute, Warsaw

PRELIMINARY TUTOR LIST

Birgit Kriener, UMB, Norway
Daniele Linaro, University of Antwerp, Belgium
Ulrike Richter, Lund University, Sweden
Cristina Savin, University of Cambridge, UK
Friedemann Zenke, EPFL, Switzerland

SECRETARY DURING THE COURSE

Chris Ploegaert, U Antwerp, Belgium

Um vídeo interessante que nos relembra que árvores dendríticas são objetos vivos e não uma simples fiação de circuitos elétricos neuronais…

Prazo ampliado para esta excelente oportunidade:

Foi prorrogado até 01/02/2012 o prazo de inscrição para o Concurso Público para Professor Adjunto (02 vagas) da Universidade Federal do ABC, na Área de  Cognição, Subárea de  Processos cognitivos complexos.

Para maiores informações, consulte:

Edital de Abertura

Edital de Condições Gerais 

Profa. Raquel Vecchio Fornari
Centro de Matemática, Computação e Cognição
Universidade Federal do ABC

More information about this event can be found at http://www.ik2012.de.

This year’s IK, chaired by Fred Hamker (Chemnitz Institute of Technology) and Justin London (Carleton College, USA), has a special focus theme on “Emotion and Aesthetics”.

Emotion and Aesthetics have received increasing attention from researchers in the brain sciences and artificial intelligence in the last
decade. Recent work has shown how emotions are an integral part of brain functioning and behavior and that aesthetic considerations influence our perception and decision making. This has led to the development of “affective science”, an area which combines neuroscience, cognitive science, artificial intelligence, philosophy and art to explore the influence of emotions and aesthetics on human behavior. With its focus theme on “Emotion and Aesthetics”, the IK 2012 will provide an interdisciplinary view of affective science with a range of courses from cognitive science, philosophy, psychology, artificial intelligence, neuroscience and neural computation. Specific IK courses will address the neural correlates of emotion and aesthetics, the influence of emotions on behavior and motivation, and psychological and neurobiological approaches to music and film. There will be also courses on “affective
computing”, a newly developing field of methods to both understand, generate and communicate emotions in a human-machine framework, including approaches in robotics.

The Interdisciplinary College (Interdisziplinaeres Kolleg, IK), which is held every spring, offers a dense, intensive and state-of-the-art
course program in neurobiology, neural computation, cognitive science, artificial intelligence, and related areas. It is aimed at graduate students, postgraduates, and researchers from academia and industry. By combining the humanities, science, and technology, the IK endeavors to promote dialogue and connectedness across the various disciplines. The IK attracts about 230
participants each year (maximum load of the conference site). All courses are taught in English.

The preliminary program is appended below this email.
Please note that “early bird” registration ends on January 15, 2012.

We look forward to meeting you all in Guenne!

Prof. Dr. Fred H Hamker
(Chemnitz Institute of Technology, Germany)
and Prof. Justin London (Carleton College, USA)

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Program
IK2012
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Basic Courses

BC1: Computational Neuroscience  (Julien Vitay, Chemnitz Institute of Technology)
BC2: Neurobiology (Ansgar Büschges, University of Cologne)
BC3: Artificial Intelligence (Alexandra Kirsch, TU München)
BC4: Philosophical issues in human affectivity  (Achim Stephan and Wendy Wilutzky, University of Osnabrück)

Method Courses

MC1: Neuroimaging (Jessica Grahn, University of Western Ontario, Canada)
MC2: Aesthetics  (Kathleen Stock, University of Sussex, UK)
MC3: Statistics: Significance and beyond (Peter Sedlmeier, Chemnitz Institute of Technology)
MC4: Machine learning and neural networks (Herbert Jaeger, Jacobs University of Bremen)

Special Courses: Emotional Neuroscience

SC1: Neural Substrates for Action Selection: The Basal Ganglia (Mark Humphries,  ENS Paris, France / University of Sheffield, UK)
SC2: Neuroeconomics and pleasure (Oliver Hulme,  University of British Columbia, Canada)
SC3: Emotion and Neurorobotics (Paul Verschure, University Pompeu Fabra, Spain)
SC4: Neural Mechanisms of Emotional Attention (Patrik Vuilleumier, University of Geneva, Switzerland)

Special Courses: Psychology and Philosophy of Emotions and Aesthetics

SC5: Music and the Brain (Manfred Spitzer, University of Ulm)
SC6: Emotion in Music (Alexandra Lamont, Keele University, UK)
SC7: Film and Emotion (Anne Hamker, Leipzig and Rüdiger Zill, Einstein Forum Potsdam)
SC8: Communication of Emotions (Disa Sauter, University of Amsterdam, Netherlands)

Special Courses: Synthetic Emotions and Robotics

SC9: Human-Robot Interactions (Kerstin Dautenhahn, University of Hertfordshire, UK)
SC10: Affective Computing (Dirk Reichardt, DhBW Stuttgart)
SC11: Social Robotics (Christian Werner Becker-Asano, University of Freiburg)
SC12: Music Access and Interaction (Francois Pachet,  CSL Sony Paris, France)

Special Courses: General

SC13: Digital Media (Rainer Malaka, University of Bremen)
SC14: Computational Linguistics (Gerhard Heyer, University of Leipzig)
SC15: Cognitive Flexibility and Basal Ganglia (Andrea Stocco, University of Washington, USA)
SC16: Harmony of the Brain (Gerald Langner, TU Darmstadt)

Practical Courses

PC1: Programming Autonomy (Hana Boukricha and Nhung Nguyen, University of  Bielefeld)
PC2: Dance in the body, the mind and the brain (Bettina Bläsing, University of  Bielefeld)
PC3: Aesthetics in Visual Perception (Gregor Hardiess, University of Tübingen)

Gentileza teria fundamentos genéticos, sugere estudo

Por Rouf Bhat | AFP 

Dear Osame,
Thank you for your explanation, my understanding about your paper improves much with your help. Your warm heart impresses me!
Be happy and healthy.
Z.

Dear Z., The model studied is a general one, that is, an excitable media with probabilistic couplings. The level where we can apply such model depends on the interest of the researcher: the elements could be persons in a epidemiological model (so, our model would be a probabilistic SIRS model), a neuronal network model (with excitatory couplings), a model of a glomerulus in the olfactory bulb (the particular application that we made in the paper), a mean field model of a dendritic arbor (see reference bellow) or even as a model of sensor networks of bacteria (to model bacterial chemotaxis). 

The particular level which you desire to apply the model will constrain and set the acceptable parameter ranges. If you are interested to model excitatory networks of neurons, you are right that one shoud use n=3 or n=4, so that the refractory period is similar to the spike width.

As you can see in Eq. (3), the refractory time governed by n affects the results only quantitatively, not qualitatively. We have studied all the cases from n=3 (that is, if spike = 1ms, then refractory period = 1ms) up to n = 10, but reported only the n=10 case because indeed we was interested in large refractory periods in the glomerulus (the particular application wich we made at the final part of the paper).

As stated in the pag. 349 of the paper, we have also studied the case with assymetrical p_ij and no difference is found. The reference to synchronization phenomena in the glomerulus is made as evidence of the presence of gap junctions in that system (More strong evidence is by now avaiable by the recent direct observation of such electrical synapses). If we apply external inputs to the system, synchronization appears, as can be seen in Fig.2c and 2d. This sinchronization under inputs is what is observed in the experimental papers. Only the spontaneous activity is in the form of avalanches, as found in experiments by Plenz. Our couplings are fast in the sense that there is no delay times at the couplings, when a site is excited, the neighbours could be excited at the following time step, without delay.

I hope that these observations coul be useful for your interests.

Presently we are working with dendritic computation, with a similar model in a tree structure, see here and here. In this model the refractory period is small and the couplings vary from the symmetric case to the full assymetric case.

Best regards,

Osame

Dear Osame,
I’m sorry I did not express myself clearly. My question is not about simulation, but about the physical meaning about your cellular automata model. It seems not so reasonable.

First, in your model, there is a very long refractory period for each cell, but in real neurons, the refractory period is usually very short. So I wonder what makes you do such an adventurous hypothesis.

Second, in your paper, you mentioned many times about the electrical synapse. The electrical synapses have two properties, it is fast and
symmetrical. But I cannot figure out what ingredient in your model represents the property of “fast”. As to the property of symmetrical, you assume that p_ij=p_ji; but I don’t know whether the network can still perform so well without such symmetrical property. Have you done such a simulation on your computer? How the result?

What’s more, still about the electrical synapse, you refer some articles about the electrical synapses and the synchronization of the network in
your paper. But I’m afraid I still cannot figure out what’s the relationship between the contents of the papers you mentioned and the content of your own paper. It seems that there is nothing about synchronization of the network in your paper.

Best wishes,
Z.

Dear Z.,
I am not sure about what is your question. The model is simply a generalized Greenberg-Hastings cellular automata in a random network where the conections p_ij are draw from a simple uniform distribution in [0,pmax]. Notice however that the mean field calculation assumes that p_ij = p (homogeneous network) and that this approximation seems to describe the behavior very well.

If you are having any difficulty to reproduce the results, I can send you more details about the exact procedure for the simulations.

Cheers,

Osame

—–Menssagem Original—–
De: “Z. B.”
Enviado 08/12/2011 07:20:43

Assunto: A question about your paper

Dear Prof. Kinouchi,

I’m a Chinese student, recently I’m reading your paper “Optimal dynamical range of excitable networks at criticality”  published in Nature Physics. However, I’m really puzzled by the model you proposed: where does it come from, how do you think out? Could you explain about it for me?

Thanks!

Besh wishes,

Z.