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van Vreeswijk 
Theoretical Neuroscience Seminar

On Wednesday, 11 am ET

 

Organized by David Hansel, Ran Darshan

& Carl van Vreeswijk (1962-2022) 

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About Us

About the Seminar

VVTNS  is a weekly digital seminar on Zoom targeting the theoretical neuroscience community. Created as the World Wide Neuroscience Seminar (WWTNS) in November 2020 and renamed in homage to Carl van Vreeswijk in Memoriam (April 20, 2022), its aim is to be a platform to exchange ideas among theoreticians. Speakers have the occasion to talk about theoretical aspects of their work which cannot be discussed in a setting where the majority of the audience consists of experimentalists. The seminars  are 45 min long followed by a discussion and are held on Wednesdays at 11 am ET. The talks are recorded with authorization of the speaker and are available to everybody on our YouTube channel.

 

To participate in the seminar you need to fill out a registration form after which you will

receive an email telling you how to connect.

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Mark van Rossum 

University of Nottingham

May 7, 2025

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Energy efficient learning in neural networks

The brain is one of the most energy intense organs. Some of this energyis used for neural information processing, however, fruitfly experiments have shown that also learning is metabolically costly. We will present estimates of this cost and introduce a general model of this cost, and compare it to costs in computers. Next, we turn to a supervised artificial network setting and explore a number of strategies that cansave energy need for plasticity. Either by modifying the objective function, by restricting plasticity, or by using less costly transient forms of plasticity. Finally, we will discuss adaptive strategies and possible relevance for biological learning.

Organizers

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David Hansel

I am a theoretical neuroscientist at the National Center for Scientific Research in Paris, France and visiting professor at The Hebrew University in Jerusalem, Israel. I am mainly interested in the recurrent dynamics in the cortex and 

basal ganglia.

Carl van Vreeswijk *

I am a theoretical neuroscientist working at the National Center for Scientific Research in Paris, France. My main interest is the dynamics of recurrent networks of neurons in the sensory system.

*deceased

Ran Darshan

 I am a theoretical neuroscientist working at the Faculty of Medicine, the Sagol School of Neuroscience & the School of Physics and Astronomy at Tel Aviv University, Israel. I am interested in learning and dynamics of neural networks. My main goal is to achieve a mechanistic understanding of brain functions.

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©2020 by WWTNS

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