Dynamical systems models in neuroscience: Are they explanatory? Are they mechanistic? with William Newsome, PhD
| Event Date: | March 25, 2026 |
|---|---|
| Time: | 9:30 - 10:30 a.m. |
| Location: | MJIS 1001 and Microsoft Teams |
| Priority: | No |
| School or Program: | Biomedical Engineering |
| College Calendar: | Show |
| Physical Address: | 206 S Martin Jischke Dr, West Lafayette, IN 47907 |
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Bio: Bill Newsome is the Harman Family Provostial Professor of Neurobiology at the Stanford University School of Medicine, and the Founding Director of the Wu Tsai Neurosciences Institute. He received a B.S. degree in physics from Stetson University and a Ph.D. in biology from the California Institute of Technology. Dr. Newsome is a leading investigator in systems and cognitive neuroscience. He has made fundamental contributions to our understanding of the neural mechanisms underlying visual perception and simple forms of decision making. Among his honors are the Rank Prize in Optoelectronics, the Spencer Award, the Distinguished Scientific Contribution Award of the American Psychological Association, the Dan David Prize of Tel Aviv University, the Karl Spencer Lashley Award of the American Philosophical Society, and the Champalimaud Vision Award. His distinguished lectureships include the 13th Annual Marr Lecture at the University of Cambridge the 9th Annual Brenda Milner Lecture at McGill University, and most recently, the Distinguished Visiting Scholar lectures at the Kavli Institute of Brain and Mind, UCSD. He was elected to membership in the National Academy of Sciences in 2000, and to the American Philosophical Society in 2011. Newsome co-chaired the NIH BRAIN working group, charged with forming a national plan for neuroscience research in the United States.
Students registered for the seminar are expected to attend in person.
Teams Meeting ID: 299 165 855 815 12 Passcode: 88D3Zq9P
2026-03-25 09:30:00 2026-03-25 10:30:00 America/Indiana/Indianapolis Dynamical systems models in neuroscience: Are they explanatory? Are they mechanistic? with William Newsome, PhD In this seminar... "I will review recent uses of dynamical systems models to analyze and interpret neural population dynamics in monkey cerebral cortex. Viewed through the lens of dynamical systems theory (DST), the activity of single neurons are but noisy reflections of underlying latent variables that define and govern the collective activity of the neural population. By focusing on the collective level, DST analyses are bringing remarkable clarity and intelligibility to single neuron data sets that are otherwise deeply puzzling. These results raise contentious issues among neuroscientists and philosophers of neuroscience. Are DST models explanatory, or merely descriptive? If explanatory, do they provide mechanistic insight? I will review both sides of the argument." MJIS 1001 and Microsoft Teams