Schedule Aug 03, 2001
Persistent Activity: VOR and Head Direction
Dr. Sebastian Seung
http://hebb.mit.edu/people/seung/
In computational models of motor control, navigation, and decision making, a number of researchers have hypothesized the existence of brain modules that integrate in the sense of Newtonian calculus. Physiologists have had some success in localizing these integrators to particular brain areas. For example, there is a brainstem area that converts saccadic and other velocity signals into changes in eye position. There are also rodent brain areas that convert vestibular and efference copy inputs into changes in an internal representation of head direction, which may be important for dead reckoning. By definition, an integrator is able to maintain its state in the absence of input, and hence, can be regarded as an analog short- term memory system. This lecture will discuss theoretical models proposed to explain the mechanisms of neural integration, and compare them with the experimental facts.

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Second part of lecture
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