You are viewing an old version of this page. View the current version.

Compare with Current View Page History

« Previous Version 288 Next »

Spring Semester 2012-2013

For Spring Semester 2012-2013, the Behavioral, Computational, and Systems Neuroscience (BCS) Journal Club will meet on Tuesdays from 11:45 to 1:00 pm in Uris Hall 205. 

Papers and notes from previous semesters can be found in the BCS meeting archive.

The semester's theme is Neural representations:  are they?  what are they?  and how are they formed?  This can be approached from a mechanistic level (what neuronal mechanisms underlie the metric(s) by which neural representations are formed), a psychological level  (generalization, discrimination, psychophysical evidence), a systems neuroscience level (coordinated cortical learning systems), or other levels TBD.  Is the concept accurate?  is it useful?  misleading?  Sensory inputs and learning change neural activity and mediate our experience - is this process well described by the concept of representations?  As always, please interpret BCS themes broadly -- they are meant to focus rather than to exclude.  

    ---

BCS will continue its "minimal Powerpoint" policy, in place since Fall 2011.  In order to make discussions more engaging and less formal, we encourage presentations to be primarily "chalk talks", in which concepts are sketched rather than figures shown.  Mixed media are OK too, in which a complex figure can be put onto a slide or simply zoomed up on from the PDF file of the original paper, but drawing the figure tends to convey stronger understanding than does flashing a figure up on the wall.  We also emphasize that you do not have to present papers in their entirety, much less multiple papers.  Having everybody read up thoroughly on something small and focused usually makes for a better experience than everybody skimming one or more full papers.  You may want to present only one exciting concept, exemplified by one or more figures drawn from one or more papers.  That's great.  Focus on the concepts, and don't feel compelled to master every detail of every paper that you want to include in your presentation.  Do what you feel is best, but please do not just put the figures of a paper into a slide show and describe the paper.  

That said, presenting your own work is always welcome, and in this case often it will be in Powerpoint format and formally organized.  Not a problem.  

To add yourself to the BCS-L mailing list, send a plain-text email to bcs-L-request@cornell.edu with the body of the message saying simply join.  The subject line doesn't matter.  Sending the message leave instead will unsubscribe you from the list.  See Cornell's Lyris HowTo page for further details. 

You can enroll in the BCS Journal Club for graduate or undergraduate credit  (1-2 CR, S/U) as a Topics in Biopsychology seminar:  PSYCH 6271.  The course requires that you present at least once during the semester and participate actively overall.  You are welcome to attend without enrolling, of course, but we do appreciate you enrolling if you plan to attend the whole semester and to present. 

Please contact Thomas Cleland or David Smith with any questions.

22 January 2013:  Organizational Meeting
  • No readings. Please come prepared to choose a day to present from the many opportunities below.
29 January 2013:  Lindsey Vedder
5 February 2013 (Thom absent):  TBD
  • TBD
12 February 2013:  Dave Bulkin
  • TBD
19 February 2013 (Thom maybe absent):  TBD
  • TBD
26 February 2013:  Dave Bulkin and David Smith
5 March 2013:  Dave Bulkin and David Smith
12 March 2013:  Adam Miller
19 March 2013:  SPRING BREAK
  • No meeting
26 March 2013 (Thom absent):  Greg Peters
2 April 2013:  Phil Perrone
  • TBD
9 April 2013:  Rachel Swanson
  • TBD
16 April 2013 (Thom maybe absent):  TBD
  • TBD
23 April 2013:  Guoshi Li
  • TBD
30 April 2013:  SiWei Luo
  •  TBD
  • No labels