Quantitative Approaches to Central Auditory Processing
From reverse-correlation to information theoretic analysis

 

CoSyNe 2005 Workshop

March 21-22, 2005 - Snowbird, Utah

 

http://webhost5.nts.jhu.edu/xwang/cosyne05_workshop.html

 

Organizer:    Xiaoqin Wang (Johns Hopkins University) [ref]

 

Invited Speakers:

 

Laurel Carney (Syracuse University) [ref]

Bertrand Delgutte (MIT) [ref]
            Israel Nelken (Hebrew Univ. of Jerusalem) [ref]
            Jan Schnupp (Oxford University) [ref]
            Christoph Schreiner (Univ. of CA, UCSF) [ref]
            Shihab Shamma (University of Maryland) [ref]
            Eric Young (Johns Hopkins University) [ref]
            Tony Zador (Cold Spring Harbor Lab) [ref]
            Kechen Zhang (Johns Hopkins University) [ref]  

 

This workshop will bring together leading researchers working with highly quantitative tools to discuss important issues concerning central auditory system studies. The workshop will focus on a fundamental question in this field: How to systematically and quantitatively characterize the functionality of a central auditory neuron? Traditionally, this problem has been approached by estimating the receptive field (RF) of a neuron using methods based on reverse-correlation or spike-triggered averaging techniques. More recently, information theoretic analysis has emerged as an additional venue to approach these problems. Invited speakers will critically examine these issues. The speakers work on a variety of model systems (rats, ferrets, cats and primates) and different sub-modalities and structures of the auditory system (from cochlear nucleus to auditory cortex). The workshop is of general interest to auditory researchers as well as those working on other sensory systems. Faculty, postdocs and graduate students are welcome to participate.


Program:

 

*Note from the organizer:

There will be slots for participants to give brief (10-minutes) talks about their work that is highly relevant to the theme of this workshop. If you are interested, please contact Dr. Xiaoqin Wang (xwang@bme.jhu.edu).

 

Monday, March 21, 2005 (Day-1)

 

Session 1 (AM):

 

8:00-8:15am   

Introduction: “What do we need to know from a central auditory neuron?”

Xiaoqin Wang (Johns Hopkins University)

 

8:15-9:00am
"Studies of coding in the AVCN-Physiological and computational modeling studies motivated by psychophysical abilities"
Laurel Carney (Syracuse University)

 

9:00-9:45am
“Receptive fields and information about sound localization in the inferior colliculus”

Eric Young (Johns Hopkins University)

 

9:45-10:00am               Break

 

10:00-10:45am
"Spectro-temporal processing: Impressions from the inferior colliculus to cortex"

Christoph Schreiner (Univ. of CA, UCSF)

 

10:45-11:00am Ad-hoc talk: Frederic Theunissen (UC Berkeley)

 

Session 2 (PM):

 

4:30-5:15pm

“Linearity of receptive fields in auditory cortex”

Anthony Zador (Cold Spring Harbor Lab)
 
5:15-6:00pm

            “From stimulus to response to ensemble coding: insights from information-theoretic measures”

Israel Nelken (Hebrew Univ. of Jerusalem)

 

6:00-6:15pm Break

 
6:15-7:00pm
"Plausible biological substrates for auditory scene analysis" 

Shihab Shamma (University of Maryland)

 

7:00-7:15pm Ad-hoc talk: Sharba Bandyopadhyay (Johns Hopkins University)

 

7:15-7:30pm Ad-hoc talk: Yi Zhou (Boston University)

 

 

Tuesday, March 22, 2005 (Day-2)

 

Session 3 (AM):

 

8:00-8:45am
“Is there always an optimal sound for an auditory neuron?”

Kechen Zhang (Johns Hopkins University)

 

8:45-9:30am 
"Neural mechanisms for processing pitch and binaural information"

Bertrand Delgutte (MIT)

 

9:30-9:45am Break

 

9:45-10:30am
"On the representation of vocalizations in auditory cortex"

Jan Schnupp (Oxford University)

 

10:30-10:45am Ad-hoc talk: Zhiyi Chi (University of Chicago)

 

10:45-11:00am Open Discussions

 

 

Location:

 

The workshop will be held at The Snowbird Ski and Summer Resort, which is located approximately 30 miles from Salt Lake City. For information on registration, financial aids, hotel and transportation, please visit CoSyNe05 web site:

 

Computational and Systems Neuroscience (CoSyNe) 2005 Main Meeting

March 17-20, 2005 - Salt Lake City, Utah

http://www.cosyne.org/