Computational Neuroscience Center

The CNC will be hosting 2 upcoming evening public lectures in our series, FUTURE TENSE, where world-class speakers discuss topics around themes of neuroscience, AI and how society may roll with developments in these fields. Stage discussions are followed by a gathering over drinks and snacks. Previous speakers include science fiction writers, filmmakers, scientists, philosophers and technologists…

Congratulations to Adrienne Fairhall, Professor of Neurobiology and Biophysics, Adjunct Professor of Applied Mathematics, and Adjunct Professor of Physics, who has just been elected to the National Academy of Sciences. Prof. Fairhall has made foundational contributions to the problem of the neural code — deciphering the set of patterns that the brain uses to compute

When we learn a new skill, we often get feedback on our performance– rewards for good behavior, debriefs from a sports coach, or corrections from a piano teacher while stumbling through our pieces. In general, though, we improve many skills without anyone telling us how we are doing: we know when we’ve made a mistake when we’re practicing a song alone. Our own “internal critic” evaluates and sign…

Assistant Professor in Bioengineering and Electrical & Computer Engineering Amy Orsborn has been awarded a prestigious Sloan Research Fellowship for her groundbreaking work in brain-machine interfaces. The fellowship, which provides $75,000 over two years, recognizes exceptional early-career scientists poised to become the next generation of scientific leaders. The Sloan Research Fellowships, awa…

UW Computational Neuroscience Center (CNC) is excited to announce the 4th annual “Hackacollabathon” hosted by the Allen Institute for Neural Dynamics (AIND) and the CNC. The goal of this event is to create a space for AIND and UW scientists to connect and collaborate, centered on analyzing fresh data collected at AIND. Date: Dec 4, 2024, 12 pm – 3 pm Location: UW South Campus Center (“Crow’s Nest…

The synaptic connectivity of neurons is fundamental to how they function. Extracting this information for entire brains is an extremely challenging task. Today, the largest map of synaptic connectivity between neurons has been published in a special issue at Nature. 12 papers describe and analyze the first whole-brain connectome of the fruit fly produced by the FlyWire consortium. Building on an …

Research Associate Professor of Psychology and eScience Institute Data Science Fellow Ariel Rokem has been awarded the Education in Neuroimaging Award by the Organization for Human Brain Mapping. The prize recognizes a researcher who has made a significant contribution to education and training in neuroimaging. Rokem’s educational work includes the establishment of the Summer Institute in Neuroim…

The CoNeCTome, the 16th annual retreat of the computational and systems neuroscience community at UW (formerly the Neural Computation and Engineering Connection), was held on May 13 and 14 on the University of Washington’s Seattle Campus. The two-day symposium, held with generous financial support from the Shanahan Family Foundation, as well as the Computational Neuroscience Center (CNC) and the …

We are excited to congratulate two CNC trainees who have received NSF Graduate Research Fellowships this spring. Ilse Dippenaar, a Neuro program grad in Adrienne Fairhall’s lab, has been awarded one for her work on the generation of variability in birdsong. Matt Helton, an AMATH research assistant in the Shea-Brown Lab, has been awarded a GRF that he will take to NYU where he be

Congratulations to Sven Dorkenwald, one of our Shanahan fellows, who was chosen as the 2024 Larry Katz Memorial Lecturer for the Cold Spring Harbor Labs Neuronal Circuits meeting in March. The Larry Katz Memorial Lectureship is awarded to a graduate student who has done “the most original and significant work in the past two years on neuronal circuits.” Sven has made amazing contributions to the …

Applications for the Shanahan Undergraduate/Postbaccalaureate fellowships are now being accepted for 2024! The UW Computational Neuroscience Center and the Shanahan Fellowship program have an exciting paid opportunity for pre-doctoral researchers interested in the interface of data and neuroscience.  There are three research assistant positions available for current students and recent graduates.…

CNC welcomed three Shanahan Foundation Fellows in 2023. Click on each fellow's name to learn more about their research. The Shanahan Foundation Fellowship at the Interface of Data and Neuroscience is a 3-year program for recent Ph.D.s to explore complex data in neuroscience at the Allen Institute and University of Washington. Applications for the [...]

The UW Computational Neuroscience Center will host our third workshop/hackathon with the Allen Institute for Neural Dynamics (AIND) on December 6, 2023, from 1:00 p.m. to 4:00 p.m. PST in the South Campus Center 301 (1601 NE Columbia Rd, Seattle, WA 98195). This year's AIND-CNC Hackacollabathon focuses on analyzing neuronal morphologies derived from large-scale whole [...]

UW's Computational Neuroscience Center recently co-organized NeuroAI in Montreal, a meeting on the interface of neuroscience and artificial intelligence, at Mila - Quebec AI Institute in Montreal, Canada, on October 10-13, 2023. Co-sponsored by the CNC’s International Network for Bio-Inspired Computation, an NSF funded network that links groups in Paris and Canada as well as [...]

Originally published by UW Medicine Newsroom Octopuses, those smart, eight-armed mollusks, transition between two sleep stages, quiet and active. Their quiet periods of slumber are punctuated by short bursts of frenzied activity. Their arms and eyes twitch, their breathing rate quickens, and their skin flashes with vibrant colors. Researchers from the Okinawa Institute of Science and [...]

Five CNC students were recently awarded prestigious graduate fellowships. Patrick Zhang, Chase King, Ryan Ressmeyer, and James Hazelden were recipients of the National Science Foundation (NSF) Graduate Research Fellowship, a highly competitive fellowship that supports outstanding US students in technology, engineering, and math graduate programs. CNC graduate student Helena Liu also received a FR…

CNC graduate student Helena Liu (Applied Math, mentor Eric Shea-Brown) recently presented her work at Computational Systems and Neuroscience (COSYNE) conference in Montreal during a session on credit assignment in the brain. Helena's talk was titled "Biologically plausible backpropagation across arbitrary timespans via local neuromodulators." View Helena's talk below.

By Wayne Gillam, re-posted from ECE News   Mental health could be considered a new frontier, one where the undiscovered landscape exists mostly in the brain. In this space, there are vast numbers of people impacted by mental illness, and there is a profound opportunity for science and technology to play an important role in [...]

The International Network for Bio-Inspired Computing is excited to announce applications are open for the next round of IN-BIC fellowships, with a deadline of January 27. AccelNet International Network for Biologically-Inspired Computing (IN-BIC) project grants support students and postdocs to undertake new collaborative projects with network partners. IN-BIC is funded through the NSF AccelNet pr…

The CNC's next seminar in our Neuro, AI, and Society series will take place December 7 at 7 PM, featuring a talk from Dr. Chantel Prat, UW Psychology Professor and author of The Neuroscience of You. Register at https://forms.gle/qQioNYXJCA62z6sd6   "The Neuroscience of You: How Understanding Your Neural Lens Can Help You Connect with Others" [...]