Computational Neuroscience: Vision

Computational modeling and simulation have produced important advances in our understanding of neural processing. This intensive 2-week summer course, held at the Banbury Center of Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory , focuses on areas of visual science in which interactions among psychophysics, neurophysiology, and computation have been especially fruitful. The course combines lectures (generally two 3-hour sessions each day) with hands-on problem solving using the MatLab programming environment in a computer laboratory.

The course has now been taught 9 times over the past 20 years as part of an integrated set of courses at Cold Spring Harbor in a number of areas of neurobiology. A full listing of alumni of all previous instantiations, with links to information on the lecture schedules, is available online.

Topics to be covered this year include: neural representation and coding, photon detection and the neural basis of color vision, pattern and texture perception, stereo and motion perception, oculomotor function, object/shape representation, visual attention and decision-making. Participants are also encouraged to present a course project, implementing a computational model of some aspect of vision.

This summer's course will be held June 18 - July 1, 2004. We will accept 24 participants (a mixture of PhD students and postdocs). Students should have experience in neurobiological and/or computational approaches to visual processing. Some computer programming experience is required. A limited amount of partial financial assistance is available on a needs basis. Application information is available online. The application deadline is 15 March 2004.