11/06/2023
By Joanne Gagnon-Ketchen
Paul Miller (Brandeis University) will give a talk on "Attractor-state transitions within neural circuits underlying cognition and behavior."
Abstract: Neurons are like tiny capacitors, each of which, when they store sufficient charge, emit a spike that adds or removes charge from thousands of connected neurons. The patterns of their spikes can appear very random, but together are revealed as quasi-stationary states upon appropriate analysis. In this talk I will show how such states and noise-induced or stimulus-induced transitions between them can arise in circuits of connected neurons, and in this manner store or process the information underlying short-term memory, decision-making, and behavior.
Bio: After a Ph.D. in theoretical physics (on superconductors in a magnetic field) at the University of Bristol, England, Paul Miller taught science in Nkhotakhota Secondary School, Malawi, before moving to the USA, where he continued with superconductivity at Georgetown University in Washington, DC. He switched to theoretical neuroscience and joined Brandeis University in 2000, becoming a faculty member in 2007 and is now Chair of the neuroscience program there.