Zusatztext 'This book is an anthology of the scientific poetry that has illuminated our studies and conceptions of the brain.' Informationen zum Autor Grace Lindsay is an Assistant Professor of Psychology and Data Science at New York University. After completing her PhD in 2018 at the Center for Theoretical Neuroscience at Columbia University, she went on to a postdoctoral fellowship at University College London, where her research focused on building mathematical models exploring sensory processing. Before that, she earned a bachelor's degree in Neuroscience from the University of Pittsburgh, and received a research fellowship to study at the Bernstein Center for Computational Neuroscience in Freiburg, Germany. She was awarded a Google PhD Fellowship in Computational Neuroscience in 2016 and has spoken at several international conferences. Klappentext The human brain is made up of 85 billion neurons, which are connected by over 100 trillion synapses. For more than a century, a diverse array of researchers searched for a language that could be used to capture the essence of what these neurons do and how they communicate - and how those communications create thoughts, perceptions and actions. The language they were looking for was mathematics, and we would not be able to understand the brain as we do today without it.In Models of the Mind , author and computational neuroscientist Grace Lindsay explains how mathematical models have allowed scientists to understand and describe many of the brain's processes, including decision-making, sensory processing, quantifying memory, and more. She introduces readers to the most important concepts in modern neuroscience, and highlights the tensions that arise when the abstract world of mathematical modelling collides with the messy details of biology. Each chapter of Models of the Mind focuses on mathematical tools that have been applied in a particular area of neuroscience, progressing from the simplest building block of the brain - the individual neuron - through to circuits of interacting neurons, whole brain areas and even the behaviours that brains command. Lindsay examines the history of the field, starting with experiments done on frog legs in the late eighteenth century and building to the large models of artificial neural networks that form the basis of modern artificial intelligence. Throughout, she reveals the value of using the elegant language of mathematics to describe the machinery of neuroscience. Vorwort Explores the value of describing the machinery of neuroscience using the elegant language of mathematics and reveals in full the remarkable fruits of this endeavour. Zusammenfassung The human brain is made up of 85 billion neurons, which are connected by over 100 trillion synapses. For more than a century, a diverse array of researchers searched for a language that could be used to capture the essence of what these neurons do and how they communicate - and how those communications create thoughts, perceptions and actions. The language they were looking for was mathematics, and we would not be able to understand the brain as we do today without it.In Models of the Mind , author and computational neuroscientist Grace Lindsay explains how mathematical models have allowed scientists to understand and describe many of the brain's processes, including decision-making, sensory processing, quantifying memory, and more. She introduces readers to the most important concepts in modern neuroscience, and highlights the tensions that arise when the abstract world of mathematical modelling collides with the messy details of biology. Each chapter of Models of the Mind focuses on mathematical tools that have been applied in a particular area of neuroscience, progressing from the simplest building block of the brain - the individual neuron - through to circuits of interactin...

Vorwort
Explores the value of describing the machinery of neuroscience using the elegant language of mathematics and reveals in full the remarkable fruits of this endeavour.

Autorentext

Grace Lindsay is an Assistant Professor of Psychology and Data Science at New York University.

After completing her PhD in 2018 at the Center for Theoretical Neuroscience at Columbia University, she went on to a postdoctoral fellowship at University College London, where her research focused on building mathematical models exploring sensory processing. Before that, she earned a bachelor's degree in Neuroscience from the University of Pittsburgh, and received a research fellowship to study at the Bernstein Center for Computational Neuroscience in Freiburg, Germany. She was awarded a Google PhD Fellowship in Computational Neuroscience in 2016 and has spoken at several international conferences.

Klappentext

The human brain is made up of 85 billion neurons, which are connected by over 100 trillion synapses. For more than a century, a diverse array of researchers searched for a language that could be used to capture the essence of what these neurons do and how they communicate - and how those communications create thoughts, perceptions and actions. The language they were looking for was mathematics, and we would not be able to understand the brain as we do today without it. In Models of the Mind, author and computational neuroscientist Grace Lindsay explains how mathematical models have allowed scientists to understand and describe many of the brain's processes, including decision-making, sensory processing, quantifying memory, and more. She introduces readers to the most important concepts in modern neuroscience, and highlights the tensions that arise when the abstract world of mathematical modelling collides with the messy details of biology. Each chapter of Models of the Mind focuses on mathematical tools that have been applied in a particular area of neuroscience, progressing from the simplest building block of the brain - the individual neuron - through to circuits of interacting neurons, whole brain areas and even the behaviours that brains command. Lindsay examines the history of the field, starting with experiments done on frog legs in the late eighteenth century and building to the large models of artificial neural networks that form the basis of modern artificial intelligence. Throughout, she reveals the value of using the elegant language of mathematics to describe the machinery of neuroscience.

Inhalt

1: Spherical Cows
2: How Neurons Get Their Spike
3: Learning to Compute
4: Making and Maintaining Memories
5: Excitation and Inhibition
6: Stages of Sight
7: Cracking the Neural Code
8: Movement in Low Dimensions
9: From Structure to Function
10: Making Rational Decisions
11: How Rewards Guide Actions
12: Grand Unified Theories of the Brain

Mathematical Appendix
Acknowledgements
Bibliography
Index