QLS seminar (Laureline Logiaco) via Zoom on 22 June 2021 at 15.00 CET

[Quantitative Life Sciences Section]

Dear All,

On Tuesday, 22 June at 15:00 CET, Dr Laureline Logiaco (Department of 
Psychiatry, Psych Integrative Neuroscience, Center for Theoretical 
Neuroscience, Columbia University in the City of New York) will give a 
webinar titled:

"Thalamic control of cortical dynamics in a model of flexible motor 
sequencing"

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Abstract:
The neural mechanisms that generate an extensible library of motor 
motifs and flexibly string them into arbitrary sequences are unclear. We 
developed a model in which inhibitory basal ganglia output neurons 
project to thalamic units that are themselves bidirectionally connected 
to a recurrent cortical network. We model the basal ganglia inhibitory 
patterns as silencing some thalamic neurons while leaving others 
disinhibited and free to interact with cortex during specific motifs. We 
show that a small number of disinhibited thalamic neurons can control 
cortical dynamics to generate specific motor output in a noise robust 
way. Additionally, a single ‘preparatory’ thalamocortical network can 
produce fast cortical dynamics that support rapid transitions between 
any pair of learned motifs. If the thalamic units associated with each 
sequence component are segregated, many motor outputs can be learned 
without interference and then combined in arbitrary orders for the 
flexible production of long and complex motor sequences. Our results 
suggest that the motor thalamocortical network architecture is 
well-suited to implement the stringing of re-usable skilled behavioral 
primitives, and have implications for engineering artificial networks 
for robust hierarchical motor control.

Indico: http://indico.ictp.it/event/9680/ 
<http://indico.ictp.it/event/9680/>

Zoom Meeting ID to attend the online seminar: 475-819-702

Join Zoom Meeting:https://zoom.us/j/475819702 <https://zoom.us/j/475819702>

If you haven't registered for previous QLS webinars, please contact 
qls at ictp.it to obtain the password for this zoom meeting.

-- 
Erica Sarnataro
Group Secretary
Quantitative Life Sciences
The Abdus Salam International Centre for Theoretical Physics (ICTP)
Trieste,  Italy
Tel. +39-040-2240623
www.ictp.it/research/qls.aspx
e-mail:qls at ictp.it