On the first day of the Corticon symposium, researchers were able to participate in lively discussions about topics ranging from cortical microcircuits to consciousness.

The symposium started this Monday and is being held at the Institut Catholique de Paris, France. During three days, the Human Brain Project’s neuroscientists and invited guests will present their latest achievements in understanding neurocircuit dynamics at microscales, meso- and macroscales, including the emergence of consciousness.

“It is great to have the research community taking on the challenge to understand consciousness, which is not so easy even to define,” said Jeanette Hellgren-Kotaleski from the KTH Royal Institute of Technology.

Hellgren-Kotaleski spoke about multiscale models of basal ganglia in learning and conscious processing. “So far, [scientists] have looked at neural correlates from various parts of the brain. We still have a long way to go, and certainly modeling simulation is an important part of that.”

In her talk on Monday morning, Panayiota Poirazi, from the FORTH Institute of Molecular Biology & Biotechnology, highlighted how dendritic processes could contribute to neural circuit computations.

Poirazi and her team are trying to understand what aspects of dendritic computations could contribute to higher cognitive capabilities in humans, besides taking ideas from dendritic computations to machine learning.

Other invited guests in this Monday’s programme were Christof Koch and Clay Reid, researchers from the Allen Institute for Brain Sciences, who participated virtually. Their lectures were about the structure and function of claustrum neurons and the reconstruction of a cortical column, respectively.

The scientific discussion and the audience participation on the first day of the event were great, said Michel Migliore, from the Italian National Research Council. “It is going to be even more exciting on the next two days, when we come to the consciousness part of the symposium, when we’ll also have philosophical discussions connected to science,” he added.

Text: Helen Mendes Lima

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HBP scientists share their latest achievements at the Corticon symposium