Silicon retinas that make spike events
The story of event cameras starts from the very beginnings of neuromorphic engineering with Misha Mahowald and Carver Mead. The chip design of these “silicon retina” cameras is the most crucial aspect that might enable them to come to mass production and widespread use. Once we have a usable camera is just the beginning, because now we need to think of our use of the data as though we were some type of artificial “silicon cortex”. That step has just started but the last few years have brought some remarkable results from the computer vision community. This talk will have a lot of live demonstrations.
“Biophysics of Structural Plasticity in Postsynaptic Spines”
The ability of the brain to encode and store information depends on the plastic nature of the individual synapses. The increase and decrease in synaptic strength, mediated through the structural plasticity of the spine, are important for learning, memory, and cognitive function. Dendritic spines are small structures that contain the synapse. They come in a variety of shapes (stubby, thin, or mushroom-shaped) and a wide range of sizes that protrude from the dendrite. These spines are the regions where the postsynaptic biochemical machinery responds to the neurotransmitters. Spines are dynamic structures, changing in size, shape, and number during development and aging. While spines and synapses have inspired neuromorphic engineering, the biophysical events underlying synaptic and structural plasticity of single spines remain poorly understood. Our current focus is on understanding the biophysical events underlying structural plasticity. I will discuss recent efforts from my group — first, a systems biology approach to construct a mathematical model of biochemical signaling and actin-mediated transient spine expansion in response to calcium influx caused by NMDA receptor activation and a series of spatial models to study the role of spine geometry and organelle location within the spine for calcium and cyclic AMP signaling. Second, I will discuss how mechanics of membrane-cytoskeleton interactions can give insight into spine shape region. And I will conclude with some new efforts in using reconstructions from electron microscopy to inform computational domains. I will conclude with how geometry and mechanics plays an important role in our understanding of fundamental biological phenomena and some general ideas on bio-inspired engineering.