Caltech Scientists Reveal How Neuronal Activity is Timed in Brain’s Memory-Making Circuits Study shows theta oscillations move across the hippocampus as traveling waves. Theta oscillations are a type of prominent brain rhythm that orchestrates neuronal activity in the hippocampus, a brain area critical for the formation of new memories. For several decades these oscillations were believed to be "in sync" across the hippocampus, timing the firing of neurons like a sort of central pacemaker. A new study conducted by researchers at Caltech, Evgueniy Lubenov, a postdoctoral scholar at the Center for Biological Circuit Design, and 
Athanassios Siapas, associate professor of computation and neural systems and Bren Scholar at Caltech, argues that this long-held assumption needs to be revised. In a paper published in this week's issue of the journal Nature, the researchers showed that instead of being in sync, theta oscillations actually sweep along the length of the hippocampus as traveling waves. Read more... 05-29-2009
Caltech Researchers Pinpoint the Mechanisms of Self-Control in the Brain. When you're on a diet, deciding to skip your favorite calorie-laden foods and eat something healthier takes a whole lot of self-control—an ability that seems to come easier to some of us than others. Now, scientists from the Caltech have uncovered differences in the brains of people who are able to exercise self-control versus those who find it almost impossible.
These findings, which are being published in the May 1 issue of the journal Science, not only provide insight into the interplay between self-control and decision making in dieters, but may explain how we make any number of decisions that require some degree of willpower.
"A very basic question in economics, psychology, and even religion, is why some people can exercise self-control but others cannot," notes Antonio Rangel, a Caltech associate professor of economics and the paper's principal investigator. "From the perspective of modern neuroscience, the question becomes, 'What is special about the circuitry of brains that can exercise good behavioral self-control?' This paper studies this question in the context of dieting decisions and provides an important insight." Read more... 04-30-2009
|
How does the brain compute? Can we endow machines with brain-like computational capability? Faculty and students in the CNS program ask these questions with the goal of understanding the brain and designing systems that show the same degree of autonomy and adaptability as biological systems. Disciplines such as neurobiology, electrical engineering, computer science, physics, statistical machine learning, control and dynamical systems analysis, and psychophysics contribute to this understanding. The unifying theme is the relationship between the physical structure of a computational system (molecular, neuronal, or electronic hardware), the dynamics of its operation, and the computational problems that it can efficiently solve.
Faculty Positions Available Positions are available through Engineering & Applied Science, Biology, and Information Science & Technology. For details, see our Positions page.
Seminar Information
Seminar announcements? Join the announcements email list.
A complete list of speakers including additional information such as talk titles and abstracts can be found on the CNS Wiki Page.