Topic: biophysical parameters

In this talk, I will explain a theory of connectome-constrained neural networks in which a “student” networks is trained to reproduce the activity of a ground-truth “teacher”, representing a neural system for which a connectome is available. Unlike standard paradigms with unconstrained connectivity, here both networks have the same connectivity but they have different biophysical parameters, reflecting uncertainty in neuronal and synaptic properties. We find that the connectome is often insufficient to constrain the dynamics of networks that perform a specific task, illustrating the difficulty

TheVirtualBrain (TVB; thevirtualbrain.org) is a software platform for simulating whole-brain network dynamics. TVB models link biophysical parameters at the cellular level with systems-level functional neuroimaging signals. Data available from animal models can provide vital constraints for the linkage across spatial and temporal scales. I will describe the construction of a macaque cortical connectome as an initial step towards a comprehensive multi-scale macaque TVB model. I will also describe our process of validating the connectome and show an example simulation of macaque resting-state dy