Page 26 - Establishing the Institute for Brain and Neural Sciences

The neurons in our brains contain and transmit information using sequences of electrical impulses or ‘spikes.’ Understanding how information is carried by the spiking patterns of neurons is one of the fundamental quests
of theoretical and computational neuroscience.
9 CENTER FOR THEORETICAL AND COMPUTATIONAL NEUROSCIENCE
How do we unravel the basic principles of nerve cell communication and crack the underlying neural code?
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S ensations, thoughts, and motor movement typically rely
on the joint activity of large groups
of neurons. The number of possible patterns created by the spiking or silencing of cells is astronomical. Moreover, neurons are notoriously unreliable and ‘noisy’ in their responses, and so, although each neuron is mostly silent, the brain’s communications networks are highly noisy.
Weizmann Institute scientists
from diverse areas such as physics, engineering, mathematics, and computer science, will apply mathematical tools and sophisticated
analyses to extract signals and exclude noise from neural communication networks, and thereby generate models of complex brain functions.
Research associated with this
center will employ mathematical tools taken from statistical physics, dynamic systems, machine learning, and information theory to create
new models and theories of brain function. Through collaborations
with experimental labs, these new theories and computational tools will be tested and re ned for the bene t of a wide range of brain disorders and conditions.