On a cold, rainy Saturday morning, neuroscience enthusiasts gathered in the Stone Lobby of the Medical Sciences Building to attend the third annual conference hosted by the Neuroscience Association of Undergraduate Students.
This year’s conference was centered around the theme, “The Digital Brain — Computational Neuroscience.” Computational neuroscience is an emerging field that integrates the disciplines of computer science and neuroscience to better understand the brain. As one of the co-presidents of NAUS, Hamza Arshad mentioned that, while introducing the conference’s topic, having focused so much on molecular neuroscience in class, it is fascinating to consider computational aspects of the field.
The day started off with a series of three lectures. The keynote speaker, Dr. Randy McIntosh, professor of psychology at the University of Toronto described the Virtual Brain Project, which uses neuroimaging data to determine “how the brain works on a systems level.” The way different parts of the brain connect with each other and transmit information and using this data to characterize neurological diseases such as epilepsy and stroke are goals of the project.
The second speaker, Dr. Richard Zemel discussed the tendency of the brain to interpret the world based on prior knowledge. “We have a lot of confidence in what goes on in the world, but if you look a little deeper, there is a lot of uncertainty,” he says. Zemel is a professor at the Department of Computer Science at U of T and uses computer models in his work to mimic the probabilistic decision making process of the brain.
The final speaker of the morning, Dr. Frances Skinner, associate professor at the Department of Medicine, Division of Neurology, discussed her work on modelling oscillatory activities in the brain, and how they are clinically relevant.
Following the three presentations, the group broke for lunch, during which undergraduate research posters were available for viewing. It was especially promising to see first-year and second-year students engage in research and present their ideas..
Following lunch, the group split into breakout sessions with two speakers each, allowing attendees to select the topic that they found most interesting.
The conference piqued the audience’s interest in computational neuroscience, although many attendees did not have the relevant background in the topic. The ideas presented were interesting, but many of the presenters did not address the audience’s knowledge gap appropriately enough.
