Events Calendar

How Do Large Networks of Neurons Make Decisions?

Speaker: Bijan Pesaran, New York University

Talk Title: How Do Large Networks of Neurons Make Decisions?

Abstract: Abstract: Selecting and planning actions recruits neurons across many areas of the brain but how ensembles of neurons work together to make decisions is unknown. Temporally-coherentneural activity may provide a mechanism by which neurons coordinate their activity in order to make decisions. If so, neurons that are part of coherent ensembles may predict movement choices before other ensembles of neurons. We have been studying activity within the posterior parietal cortex while monkeys make choices about where to look and reach, by decoding the activity to predict the choices. We find that ensembles of neurons that display coherent patterns of spiking activity extending across the parietal cortex, ''dual coherent'' ensembles, predict movement choices substantially earlier than other neuronal ensembles. We propose that dual-coherent spike timing reflects interactions between groups of neurons that play an important role in how we make decisions. I will discuss this result in the context of models of larger scale brain circuits that make decisions. I will finish by presenting our latest efforts to develop new technologies and perform brain-scale investigations of the primate brain.

Biography: Bijan Pesaran is Associate Professor of Neural Science at the Center for Neural Science at New York University. He is also member of NYUs Center for Neuroeconomics. Pesaran is an expert in neuronal dynamics and decision making and has pioneered the study of spike-field coherence in the non-human primate brain. His lab has developed large-scale neurophysiological circuit mapping capabilities to understand how behavior emerges from neuronal activity across interacting brain circuits. He has developed transformative multimodal technology to simultaneously record from single neurons, local potentials and micro-ECoG signals across the cortical layers directly below ECoG recording sites.

Host: Maryam Shanechi

Location: Hughes Aircraft Electrical Engineering Center (EEB) - 132

Audiences: Everyone Is Invited

Contact: Gloria Halfacre