Cosyne 2005 Workshops
March 21-22, 2005
Snowbird, Utah
Workshop Title
Active sensation: Implications for sensory processing
Organizer(s)
Bence Olveczky
Abstract
Most sensory experiences are gained by active exploration of the environment through sniffing, touching, eye movements etc. In this workshop we will explore the implications of active sensation for sensory processing. By bringing together scientists working on different systems we hope to identify common principles employed by the nervous system for dealing with the constraints imposed by active sensation, as well as glean some of the advantages that it might yield for sensory processing of natural stimuli. In particular we will focus on the following issues:
1: How does the nervous system deal with the sensory interference caused by active sensation, and what neural mechanisms are employed to parse the self-generated sensory signal from information coming from the outside world? (Examples of model systems: Electrolocation in weakly electric fish, Retinal processing in the presence of eye-movements.)
2: By discretely and periodically sampling the environment, active sensation imposes a structure on the neural response. Similar time-locking can also be induced by the dynamical nature of natural stimuli (e.g. turbulent odor plumes in olfaction). Does such an imposed temporal structure on the neural response (e.g. synchrony in a population of neurons) yield any advantages and/or determine the rules for sensory processing?
