Bernstein Conference on Computational Neuroscience (BCCN 2009)

The Bernstein Conference on Computational Neuroscience (BCCN) is an annual meeting of researchers working in Computational Neuroscience and Neurotechnology. It has grown out of the Symposium of the German National Bernstein Network for Computational Neuroscience, which has been held since 2005. Now in its 5th year, organized by the Frankfurt Institute for Advanced Studies (FIAS), it has been opened as an international conference. We expect around 300 international participants from the areas of Cognitive Science, Neuroscience, Computer Science, Physics, Machine Learning, Mathematics, Engineering and related fields. Selected abstracts will be published in the journal Frontiers in Computational Neuroscience. Best posters, talks, and demonstrations will be awarded with a total sum of 1500 Euros (supported by the Deutsche Telekom Laboratories).

The meeting is open for contributions from all relevant areas of computational neuroscience including, but not limited to: learning and plasticity, sensory processing, motor control, reward system, brain computer interface, neural encoding and decoding, decision making, information processing in neurons and networks, dynamical systems and recurrent networks, and neurotechnology. This year's meeting will have an emphasis on all aspects of vision.
 

MAIN MEETING:

30 September - 2 October, 2009
Goethe University
Frankfurt am Main, Germany
 

PHD STUDENT-SYMPOSIUM:

3 October, 2009
Frankfurt Institute for Advanced Studies
Frankfurt am Main, Germany
 

IMPORTANT DATES:

Abstract submission opened: 4 May 2009
Abstract submission deadline: 31 May 2009
Demonstration proposals deadline: 15 June 2009
Notification of acceptance: 13 July 2009
Early registration closes: 15 August 2009
 

CONFIRMED INVITED SPEAKERS:

Jozsef Fiser (Brandeis)
Wulfram Gerstner (EPFL)
Amiram Grinvald (Weizmann)
Gilles Laurent (Caltech)
Klaus Obermayer (BCCN Berlin)
Mriganka Sur (MIT)
 

ORGANIZING COMMITTEE:

General Chair: Jochen Triesch
Program Chairs: Jorg Lucke, Gordon Pipa, Constantin Rothkopf
Demonstrations Chair: Cornelius Weber
Publications Chair: Junmei Zhu
Finance Chair: Cornelius Weber
Publicity Chair: Prashant Joshi
PhD Student-Symposium Chair: Cristina Savin
Local Arrangements Chair: Gaby Schmitz
IT Support: Alexander Achenbach, Marc Henniges, Thomas Weisswange
 

We are looking forward to welcoming you in Frankfurt!

Main Meeting:

30 September - 2 October, 2009

Venue: Johann-Wolfgang Goethe University, Frankfurt am Main, Germany
 

Student Symposium:

3 October, 2009

Venue: Frankfurt Institute for Advanced Studies, Frankfurt am Main, Germany
 

Important Dates:

Abstract Submission Open: 4 May, 2009

Abstract Submission Deadline: 17 May, 2009 (extended to 31 May, 2009)

Demonstrations Proposal Deadline: 15 June, 2009

Notification of Acceptance: 21 July, 2009

Registration opened on 21 July, 2009

Early Registration Closes: 15 August, 2009
 

Misc:

A workshop by Ms. Katrin Weigmann for approx. 12 participants titled: "How to get the message across?"

The workshop will focus on effective strategies and methods to communicate with non-scientific audience and members of the press.

29-30 September, 2009

Venue: Frankfurt Institute for Advanced Studies, Frankfurt am Main, Germany

Author Instructions

Abstracts of up to 500 words are accepted as submissions to the BCCN 2009. The abstract should describe the research, its relevance, and originality. It should be self-contained and by itself allow for an appropriate evaluation of the work. The abstract has to be inserted into a web interface in plain text. Title, authors, and affiliations are to be entered in separate fields. To support the abstract, you may upload a one-page PDF as supplementary material. The PDF can contain additional text, equations, and figures. Font size should be no smaller than 8dpi.

Note that submissions that do not adhere to the above and the following instructions will not be considered.

Note the submission deadline has been extended to May 31, 2009, 23:59 UTC.

Abstracts can be updated after the initial submission until the submission page closes on May 31, 2009, 23:59 UTC. If you plan to submit, please register as a new author/user at least 24 hours before submission closes. For abstract submission follow the detailed guideline below.
 

Abstract submission details

1. To submit, please go to (link disabled). Submission to the conference implies that all listed authors have approved the contribution.

2. Register as a new author/user (link on the left) and enter all required information. Input fields marked with * are mandatory. Even if you are not planning to submit an abstract immediately, we would like to ask you to register as soon as possible (at least 24 hours before deadline) to make sure that you get the confirmation email with login information in time. For all text fields in the submission/author-registration process, please make sure that you do NOT use capital letters. That is, write "Miller" and not "MILLER".
3. After receiving the confirmation email containing your user name and password, you can log into the system using the link above (which will also be provided in the email again). By clicking onto “Change User Data” you can always edit the information you provided during the registration procedure as well as your user name and password.
4. The abstract has to be entered as plain text into the provided text field. The text should be prepared offline and copied into the text field at submission. Please proofread the text carefully, especially making sure that special characters are shown correctly. You may also include acknowledgement and references within the word limit.
5. An optional supplementary material may be uploaded as a one page PDF-file. Please name it according to the last name of the corresponding author. The supplementary material will be linked to your abstract on the conference website. However, the abstract is the main document and should be self-contained. You can refer to figures or equations in the PDF, but make sure that the text is understandable without such references. For example: "... has a strong influence on the reconstruction error (also compare supplementary Fig. 1)."
6. For each abstract the submitting author has to give the names of each co-author and each co-author's affiliation and e-mail address. Each affiliation has to be entered along with its city and country (format: institute, university, city, country). For authors with more than one affiliations, please enter all his/her affiliations into the affiliation text field using a semicolon as separator. For instance: Institute A, University A, City A, Country A; Institute B, University B, City B, Country B. In case of a positive evaluation, this information will be used to compile the abstract for later publication. Therefore, please take special care about possible spelling mistakes.
7. Please choose a preferred presentation type (oral or poster). If you choose "oral", your submission is still very likely to be selected for poster presentation. If you choose "poster", your submission will not be selected for oral presentation even if it is judged to be of sufficiently high quality for one. If you state that you plan to participate in the students symposium, there is an additional possibility that your abstract is accepted for oral presentation there.
8. After the initial upload, submitted abstracts can be edited until submission deadline (within the list of your abstracts, click on the magnifying glass and choose "edit data"). All authors will automatically be informed about the initial submission of the abstract and all later changes.
9. Please note that the submitting author is automatically set to be the corresponding author. If you want to change this, please go to “View own papers” after the initial upload.
10. One author may submit more than one abstract and/or can be author of more than one abstract.
11. Support is provided via email: (link disabled)
12. Notifications about acceptance / presentation type will be sent by Monday, July 13^th.

 
Demonstration submission details

To submit a description of your demonstration, please send an email to (link disabled) describing on one page your demonstration and its features, and what resources (space / duration / projector / internet / etc.) you require.
 

Deadline is 15th June; decision about demonstrations will be made by July 13th

Overview

• Conference starts: Wednesday, Sep 30, 2009
• Welcome reception opens: 12.00pm, First talk: 1.30pm
• Conference ends: Friday, Oct 2, 2009 at 5pm
• PhD Symposium: Saturday, Oct 3, 2009, 9:30 am to 5:00 pm; detailed program available here.

The Conference booklet can be downloaded from here (PDF).
 

Final Program (PDF)

Satellite Event at FIAS: Workshop

Tuesday, September 29, 14:00 – 18:00 Wednesday, September 30, 09:00 – 13:00

Title: “Getting the message across” | Katrin Weigmann
 

Bernstein Meeting and Registration

Wednesday, September 30, 10:00 – 13:30

10:00 Meeting of the members of Bernstein Computational Neuroscience e.V. | by invitation only

11:30 Bernstein Project Committee Meeting | by invitation only

11:30 Registration and Welcome Reception
 

Talk Session

Wednesday, September 30, 13:30 – 15:20

Session Chairs: Jochen Triesch, Constantin Rothkopf

13.30 Welcome | Werner Müller-Esterl (President of Goethe University)

13.35 Opening | Jochen Triesch (BCCN 2009 General Chair)

13.40 Issuing of Bernstein Award 2009 | Thomas Rachel (Parliamentary State Secretary, BMBF)

14:00 Keynote | Bernstein Awardee

15:00 Neuronal phase response curves for maximal information transmission | Jan-Hendrik Schleimer, Martin Stemmler

15:20 Coffee break
 

Talk Session: Plasticity

Wednesday, September 30, 15:40 – 17:20

Session Chair: Christoph von der Malsburg

15:40 Keynote: Modeling synaptic plasticity | Wulfram Gerstner

16:40 Adaptive spike timing dependent plasticity realises palimsest auto-associative memories | Klaus Pawelzik, Christian Albers

17:00 A gamma-phase model of receptive field formation | Dana H Ballard
 

Poster Session I

Wednesday, September 30, 17:20 – 21:20

Poster topics:

• Dynamical systems and recurrent networks
• Information processing in neurons and networks
• Neural encoding and decoding
• Neurotechnology and brain computer interfaces
• Probabilistic models and unsupervised learning

Catering
 

Talk Session: Detailed models

Thursday, October 1, 09:00 – 11:00

Session Chair: Klaus Pawelzik

09:00 Keynote: Rules of cortical plasticity | Mriganka Sur

10:00 Efficient reconstruction of large-scale neuronal morphologies | Panos Drouvelis, Stefan Lang, Peter Bastian, Marcel Oberlaender, Thorben Kurz, Bert Sakmann

10:20 Adaptive accurate simulations of single neurons | Dan Popovic, Stefan Lang, Peter Bastian

10:40 Coffee break
 

Talk Session: Synchrony

Thursday, October 1, 11:00 – 13:00

Session Chair: Gordon Pipa

11:00 Synchronized inputs induce switching to criticality in a neural network | Anna Levina, J. Michael Herrmann, Theo Geisel

11:20 Role of neuronal synchrony in the generation of evoked EEG/MEG responses | Bartosz Telenczuk, Vadim Nikulin, Gabriel Curio

11:40 Spike time coordination maps to diffusion process | Lishma Anand, Birgit Kriener, Raoul-Martin Memmesheimer, Marc Timme

12:00 Lunch break
 

Talk Session: Network dynamics

Thursday, October 1, 13:00 – 15:00

Session Chair: Jörg Lücke

13:00 Keynote: Coding and connectivity in an olfactory circuit | Gilles Laurent

14:00 Neurometric function analysis of short-term population codes | Philipp Berens, Sebastian Gerwinn, Alexander Ecker, Matthias Bethge

14:20 A network architecture for maximal separation of neuronal representations - experiment and theory | Ron Jortner, Gilles Laurent

14:40 Dynamics of nonlinear suppression in V1 simple cells | Manuel Levy, Anthony Truchard, Gérard Sadoc, Izumi Ohzawa, Yves Fregnac, Ralph Freeman
 

Poster Session II and Demonstrations

Thursday, October 1, 15:00 – 19:00

Poster topics:

• Computer vision
• Decision, control and reward
• Learning and plasticity
• Sensory processing

19:00 Conference dinner
 

Talk Session: Representations /Decoding

Friday, October 2, 09:00 – 11:00

Session Chair: Máté Lengyel

09:00 Keynote: Modelling cortical representations | Klaus Obermayer

10:00 Inferred potential motor goal representation in the parietal reach region | Christian Klaes, Stephanie Westendorff, Alexander Gail

10:20 A P300-based brain-robot interface for shaping human-robot interaction | Andrea Finke, Yaochu Jin, Helge Ritter

10:40 Coffee break
 

Talk Session: Integration

Friday, October 2, 11:00 – 12:00

Session Chair: Peggy Seriès

11:00 On the interaction of feature- and object-based attention | Detlef Wegener, Friederike Ehn, Orlando Galashan, Andreas K Kreiter

11:20 Interactions between top-down and stimulus-driven processes in visual feature integration | Marc Schipper, Udo Ernst, Klaus Pawelzik, Manfred Fahle

11:40 Coding of interaural time differences in the DNLL of the mongolian gerbil | Hannes Lüling, Ida Siveke, Benedikt Grothe, Christian Leibold

12:00 Lunch break
 

Talk Session: Memory

Friday, October 2, 13:00 – 14:40

Session Chair: Constantin Rothkopf

13:00 Keynote: Probabilistic inference and learning: from behavior to neural representations | József Fiser

14:00 A multi-stage synaptic model of memory | Alex Roxin, Stefano Fusi

14:20 An integrated system for incremental learning of multiple visual categories | Stephan Kirstein, Heiko Wersing, Horst-Michael Groß, Edgar Körner

14:40 Coffee break
 

Talk Session: Mesoscopic dynamics

Friday, October 2, 15:00 – 17:00

Session Chair: Dirk Jancke

15:00 A mesoscopic model of VSD dynamics observed in visual cortex induced by flashed and moving stimuli | Valentin Markounikau, Christian Igel, Dirk Jancke

15:20 Keynote: Dynamics of on going activity in anesthetized and awake primate | Amiram Grinvald, David Omer

16:20 Awards and Closing Speech
 

Satellite Event at FIAS: Student Symposium

Saturday, October 3, 09:30 – 17:00

Invited speakers:

• Tim Gollisch: Neural coding in the retina
• Máté Lengyel: Episodic memory: why and how - or the powers and perils of Bayesian inference in the brain

• Jozsef Fiser* (Brandeis)
  
• Wulram Gerstner* (EPFL)
  
• Amiram Grinvald* (Weizmann)
• Gilles Laurent* (Caltech)
  
• Klaus Obermayer* (Bernstein Center, Berlin)
• Mriganka Sur* (MIT)
• Bernstein Award 2009 winner

* - Confirmed Speakers

General Chair	Jochen Triesch
Program Chairs	Jörg Lücke, Gordon Pipa, Constantin Rothkopf
Publications Chair	Junmei Zhu
Publicity Chair	Prashant Joshi
Demo & Finance Chair	Cornelius Weber
Local Organization	Gaby Schmitz
PhD Symposium Chair	Cristina Savin

Bruno Averbeck, Institute of Neurology, University College London (UCL), UK

Dana Ballard, Department of Computer Science, University of Texas at Austin, USA

Pietro Berkes, Volen Center for Complex Systems, Brandeis University, Waltham, USA

Matthias Bethge, Max Planck Institute for Biological Cybernetics, Tübingen, Germany

Zhe Chen, Harvard Medical School, Boston, USA

Julian Eggert, Honda Research Institute Europe GmbH, Offenbach/Main, Germany

Marc-Oliver Gewaltig, Honda Research Institute Europe GmbH, Offenbach/Main, Germany

Rob Haslinger, Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston, USA

Konrad Koerding, Rehabiliation Institute of Chicago and Depts of Physiology, Physical Medicine and Rehabiliation and Applied Mathematics, Northwestern University, Chicago, USA

Máté Lengyel, Computational and Biological Learning Lab, Department of Engineering, University of Cambridge, UK

David Nguyen, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Boston, USA

Jonathan Pillow, Departments of Psychology and Neurobiology, University of Texas at Austin, USA

Alex Roxin, Center for Theoretical Neuroscience, Columbia University, New York, USA

Paul Schrater, Departments of Psychology and Computer Science, University of Minnesota, USA

Lars Schwabe, Adaptive and Regenerative Systems, Dept of Computer Science and Electrical Engineering, University of Rostock, Germany

Peg Series, Institute for Adaptive and Neural Computation, The University of Edinburgh, UK

Fritz Sommer, University of California Berkeley, USA

Heiko Wersing, Honda Research Institute Europe GmbH, Offenbach/Main, Germany

Diek W. Wheeler, Krasnow Institute for Advanced Study, George Mason University, Fairfax, USA

The students symposium has become a regular event accompanying the Bernstein annual meeting. The main idea is to enable PhD students and young Postdocs to meet, present their work, exchange ideas, and discuss with the invited speakers in an informal setting.

 

Invited speakers

Tim Gollisch (MPI for Neurobiology)

Máté Lengyel (Cambridge)

Peggy Series (ANC, Edinburgh)

 

Registration for this event will be done together with that for the main meeting.

Based on the abstracts submitted for the main meeting, a few students will be invited to give short talks.

 

Schedule:  talks will start at 9:30; symposium will end by 17:00. The full program is available here.

Lunch is provided in the FIAS Faculty Club for all registered participants.

The fifth Bernstein Conference on Computational Neuroscience (BCCN), is going to be held in Frankfurt, Germany. Frankfurt, the Roman Empire's coronation city, medieval city republic, hosting Germany's first democratic parliament, and in current times Europe's economic centre and traffic hub, is one of Germany's leading cities.

Certainly one of Europe's most interesting cities in terms of skylines, Frankfurt is home to five structures that are over 200 metres tall.

The contrast here is interesting: The city combines low-rise, high-density traditional European architecture (some of which is over 1,000 years old), with modern architecture. An example of the former is Roemer Square, which forms part of the "Alt-Stadt" or old-town Frankfurt.

The conference will take place in the "Neues Hörsaalzentrum", the new lecture center for the Goethe University, Frankfurt. The center is situated in the "Campus Westend" and is equipped with all the modern facilities.

We look forward to seeing you in Frankfurt.

Thanks to the generous support of the Deutsche Telekom AG Laboratories, there will be awards for the best talk, best demonstration and three best posters (€ 300 each). While our awards committee will select the winner of the best talk prize, all participants will vote on the best demonstration and posters.
 

The Honda Research Institute has supported the event.
 

This event was sponsored by the Federal Ministry of Education and Research.