Conference: Conference: Functional Logic of Neural circuits: diamonds in the rough (2024)

Natural behavior is the result of complex interactions between neurons, between neurons and the body, and between the body and the environment. Understanding the neural circuits underpinning animal behavior, therefore, involves unravelling this web of interactions and has captured the imagination and efforts of biologists, physicists, mathematicians, engineers, and artificial intelligence researchers alike. This award provides funding for researchers in these various disciplines to come together and find common direction, exchange ideas and insights, and create new collaborations. The organizers will lead a workshop on the Functional Logic of Neural Circuits. The workshop will take place in Puerto Rico in February 2024. The goal of the workshop is to create a highly interactive environment that fosters maximum information exchange amongst a diverse set of researchers from experimental, computational, and theoretical neuroscience, structural and functional connectomics, genomics, and artificial intelligence. To accomplish this goal, the workshop includes several planned activities including chalk talks, panel discussions, and random group breakouts. The workshop will result in a comprehensive summary that will be widely disseminated for the purpose of fostering new community efforts around this challenging scientific problem. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.