How the brain works: Neuroscience and next-generation AI
Distinguished Seminar with Mriganka Sur
The human brain has 80 billion neurons, or specialized electrically-active brain cells, and an equal number of other cells organized into circuits and systems that process information and give rise to cognition. Brain architectures, especially those of the cerebral cortex, are created during development but are also continuously shaped by plasticity and learning. Flexible reconfigurable networks are essential for dynamics of brain activity underlying cognition. Understanding the underlying computational principles is fundamental for understanding how the brain creates the mind, for mechanism-based treatment of brain disorders, and for next-generation AI aimed at efficient low-power computing that resembles human cognition.
Date and Time
Location
Hosts
Registration
- Date: 16 May 2025
- Time: 06:10 PM UTC to 07:00 PM UTC
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- 0114 Student Innovation Center
- 606 Bissell Road, Iowa State University
- Ames, Iowa
- United States 50011
- Contact Event Host
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Prof. Ratnesh Kumar (ISU); rkumar@iastate.edu
- Co-sponsored by Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering; Iowa State University
Speakers
Prof. Mriganka Sur of Massachusetts Institute of Technology
How the brain works: Neuroscience and next-generation AI
The human brain has 80 billion neurons, or specialized electrically-active brain cells, and an equal number of other cells organized into circuits and systems that process information and give rise to cognition. Brain architectures, especially those of the cerebral cortex, are created during development but are also continuously shaped by plasticity and learning. Flexible reconfigurable networks are essential for dynamics of brain activity underlying cognition. Understanding the underlying computational principles is fundamental for understanding how the brain creates the mind, for mechanism-based treatment of brain disorders, and for next-generation AI aimed at efficient low-power computing that resembles human cognition.
Biography:
Prof. Mriganka Sur is the Newton Professor of Neuroscience and Director of the Simons Center for the Social Brain at MIT, which he founded after 15 years as head of the MIT Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences. Prof. Sur received the B. Tech. degree in Electrical Engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur, and the PhD degree in Electrical Engineering from Vanderbilt University, Nashville. His group studies the organization, plasticity and dynamics of the cerebral cortex of the brain and has discovered fundamental principles by which networks of the cerebral cortex are wired during development and change dynamically during learning. His laboratory has identified gene networks underlying cortical plasticity, and pioneered high resolution imaging methods to study cells, synapses and circuits of the intact brain. His group has demonstrated novel mechanisms underlying disorders of brain development, and proposed innovative strategies for treating such disorders. The impact of these discoveries, which answer long-standing questions about computations underlying learning, decision-making and perception-action transformations, ranges from understanding dysregulation in brain disorders to brain architectures for next-generation AI. He has received numerous awards and honors, most recently the Krieg Cortical Discoverer Prize, and delivered distinguished lectures world-wide. He has trained over 80 doctoral students and postdoctoral fellows, and received awards for outstanding teaching and mentoring. At MIT, he has been recognized with the Sherman Fairchild and Newton Chairs. He is an elected Fellow of the Royal Society of the UK, the National Academy of Medicine, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the World Academy of Sciences, the Indian National Science Academy, and the American Institute of Medical and Biological Engineering.
Address:MIT,
Mriganka Sur of Massachusetts Institute of Technology
How the brain works: Neuroscience and next-generation AI
The human brain has 80 billion neurons, or specialized electrically-active brain cells, and an equal number of other cells organized into circuits and systems that process information and give rise to cognition. Brain architectures, especially those of the cerebral cortex, are created during development but are also continuously shaped by plasticity and learning. Flexible reconfigurable networks are essential for dynamics of brain activity underlying cognition. Understanding the underlying computational principles is fundamental for understanding how the brain creates the mind, for mechanism-based treatment of brain disorders, and for next-generation AI aimed at efficient low-power computing that resembles human cognition.
Biography:
Prof. Mriganka Sur is the Newton Professor of Neuroscience and Director of the Simons Center for the Social Brain at MIT, which he founded after 15 years as head of the MIT Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences. Prof. Sur received the B. Tech. degree in Electrical Engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur, and the PhD degree in Electrical Engineering from Vanderbilt University, Nashville. His group studies the organization, plasticity and dynamics of the cerebral cortex of the brain and has discovered fundamental principles by which networks of the cerebral cortex are wired during development and change dynamically during learning. His laboratory has identified gene networks underlying cortical plasticity, and pioneered high resolution imaging methods to study cells, synapses and circuits of the intact brain. His group has demonstrated novel mechanisms underlying disorders of brain development, and proposed innovative strategies for treating such disorders. The impact of these discoveries, which answer long-standing questions about computations underlying learning, decision-making and perception-action transformations, ranges from understanding dysregulation in brain disorders to brain architectures for next-generation AI. He has received numerous awards and honors, most recently the Krieg Cortical Discoverer Prize, and delivered distinguished lectures world-wide. He has trained over 80 doctoral students and postdoctoral fellows, and received awards for outstanding teaching and mentoring. At MIT, he has been recognized with the Sherman Fairchild and Newton Chairs. He is an elected Fellow of the Royal Society of the UK, the National Academy of Medicine, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the World Academy of Sciences, the Indian National Science Academy, and the American Institute of Medical and Biological Engineering.
Address:Newton Professor of Neuroscience and Director of the Simons Center for the Social Brain , Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Agenda
1:10 PM – 2:00 PM Presentation
Registration for this meeting is not required.