Past events

The curriculum integrates cutting-edge advances in machine learning and causality research with state-of-the-art modeling approaches in neuroscience.

What are common principles of natural and artificial intelligence?
The core challenge of intelligence is generalization. Neuroscience, cognitive science, and AI are all questing for principles that help generalization.

Computational Neuroscience and Inference from data are disciplines that extensively use tools from Mathematics and Physics to understand the behavior of model neuronal networks and analyze data from real experiments. Due to its interdisciplinary nature and the complexity of the neuronal networks, the list of techniques that are borrowed from Physics and Mathematics is an extensive one. Although using tools from standard curriculum of Physics, Mathematics and Engineering is common, more advanced research requires methods and techniques that are not usually covered in any single discipline.

To fill in this gap, this summer school covers some of the most important methods used in computational neuroscience research through both main lectures and scientific seminars (5-6 main lectures per topic and 1-2 seminars by each invited seminar speaker).

Our goal is​ to teach advanced techniques in model-based analysis of behavior (humans and other animals) to cognitive and computational neuroscientists at PhD and early career levels. This will be achieved through structured lectures and talks, together with a strong focus on hands-on tutorials and group projects aimed at making the obtained knowledge directly applicable to the participants' own research. Our goal is that the trainees acquire both the conceptual basis and the technical skills that will enable them to pursue a full modeling approach on their own when they come back to their lab.

The Organization for Computational Neurosciences promotes meetings and courses in computational neuroscience and organizes the Annual CNS Meeting which serves as a forum for young scientists to present their work and to interact with senior leaders in the field.

Computational approaches to neuroscience will produce important advances in our understanding of neural processing. Prominent success will come in areas where strong inputs from neurobiological, behavioral and computational investigation can interact. The theme of the course is that an understanding of the computational problems, the constraints on solutions to these problems, and the range of possible solutions can help guide research in neuroscience. Through a combination of lectures and hands-on experience with MATLAB- and Python-based computer tutorials and projects, this intensive course will examine visual information processing from the retina to higher cortical areas, spatial pattern analysis, motion analysis, neuronal coding and decoding, attention, and decision-making.

Systems Vision Science combines computational, behavioral, and neuroscience methods to discover functions and algorithms for vision in various brain regions and their implementations in neural circuits. This summer school is designed for everyone interested in gaining a systems level understanding of biological vision.

The FENS Forum of neuroscience is the largest international neuroscience meeting in Europe. Taking place in even years, the FENS Forum rotates between different European countries and attracts more than 7,000 international delegates.

The Bernstein Network will have an information booth at this event!

The AREADNE conferences bring scientific leaders from around the world to present their recent findings on the functioning of neuronal ensembles in an informal and beautiful setting on Milos. The conference series emphasizes interaction with a size and pace that encourages in-depth discussion. Interested researchers are strongly encouraged to submit an abstract for poster presentation as attendance is strictly limited, and the conference typically sells out. Abstract submission deadline is 26 January 2024. Send us your best work!

The NEST Initiative is excited to invite everyone interested in Neural Simulation Technology and the NEST Simulator to the virtual NEST Conference 2024. The NEST Conference provides an opportunity for the NEST Community to meet, exchange success stories, swap advice, learn about current developments in and around NEST spiking network simulation and its application. We particularly encourage young scientists to participate in the conference!

The International Conference on Mathematical Neuroscience (ICMNS) is an
inter-disciplinary conference series, bringing together theoretical/computational neuroscientists and mathematicians. The conferences are aimed at scientists interested in using or developing mathematical techniques for neuroscience problems.

With this symposium, the BCCN Berlin will celebrate the 20. anniversary of the Center and its achievements.

The program is structured around a series of in-depth morning presentations delivered by invited speakers. These talks will feature recent advances in the field of dynamics, plasticity, and computation in neuronal circuits, with an emphasis on both mathematical tools and biological implications. In the afternoons, participants will share their own research through contributed talks and poster presentations. The primary objective of this program is to foster a collaborative and prolific exchange of ideas among emerging scientists in the field of Theoretical Neuroscience.

This conference is planned as a truly interdisciplinary event. We intend to bring many communities together that are working to expand our understanding of the human brain, and to engineer brain-inspired technologies of low power and increased computational abilities as well as their application in present and future AI systems. The location is the Eurogress, in the heart of the historic city of Aachen, with close connections to RWTH University and nearby Forschungszentrum Jülich.

Two decades into the 21st century, how close are we to building an artificial intelligence inspired by models of the brain? In this exploratory symposium, we invite submissions presenting mathematical models of brain function or computational ideas about intelligence. We give priority to those models that can account for brain or behavioural data, or provide simulations to that effect.

The 10th EBRAINS Baltic-Nordic Summer School on Neuroscience “From Neurons to The Virtual Brain, Consciousness and Artificial Intelligence” will provide you with the latest achievements in the brain research, implications to AI methods and applications in clinical practice.

Principles of dendritic function and computation:
Understanding how brains generate perception and drive behaviour while being energetically efficient is still one of the biggest challenges of our century. Neurons communicate via synaptic inputs which are located on thin branches known as dendrites which shape how we respond to the external world, encode memories, and generate behaviour. Recent technical developments have enabled the study of dendrites at multiple levels, from the organization and plasticity of single synaptic inputs to dendritic computations in behaviour. The goal of this workshop is to bring together international scientific leaders who work on molecular, biophysical, anatomical, computational and/or functional aspects of dendrites to further our understanding of how these beautiful structures contribute to different brain functions and their abnormalities.

The IEEE International Conference on Development and Learning (ICDL) conference is a unique meeting gathering researchers from computer science, robotics, psychology, neuroscience, and other disciplines to share and discuss research on how humans and other animals learn and develop and how this can inform and be informed by robotics and machine learning systems.

Theoretical/Computational Neuroscience is currently undergoing a phase of unprecedented growth. Dramatic advances in the ease with which large-scale datasets of behavior, neural activity, connectomic and gene expression information can be collected have coincided with a revolution in the capabilities of Artificial Intelligence-based algorithms to interrogate such datasets. Concurrently, these new datasets are inspiring exciting new developments in mathematical tools for extracting their underlying structure and relationships. What is the current state of the art in our theoretical/computational understanding of the brain, and what does the future hold? You are invited to join an exciting line-up of leaders in the field to address these questions.

Der Physiker Theo Geisel aus Göttingen trifft auf den Perkussionisten Murat Coşkun aus Freiburg. Ihr Zugang zum Rhythmus in der Musik könnte unterschiedlicher nicht sein…

This symposium will be held in honour of the centenary of the birth of Werner Reichardt, the founding director of the Max Planck Institute for Biological Cybernetics and a pioneer in the fields of vision science and what is now known as computational neuroscience.

This workshop will include advanced research talks (and introductory lectures) on a range of topics related to the neural processes of auditory, visual and cross-modal perception.
The main focus of this year’s workshop will be on spatial audio virtualization and gamification for hearing assessment and enhancement.
The talks will illustrate the multidisciplinary character of cognitive neuroscience research, covering behavioral, neuroimaging, and modeling approaches, as well as applications of the research in auditory prosthetic devices.
The workshop is aimed at early-stage and advanced students and young researchers, and it will provide ample opportunities for direct interactions between the lecturers and the attendees.

The Summit will aim to explore the intersection of neuroscience and Artificial Intelligence (AI), with a particular focus on mechanisms of learning. This event will provide a platform for AI and experimental neuroscience researchers to delve into the mechanisms of learning at the cellular, systems, and behavioral levels.

The annual Cosyne meeting provides an inclusive forum for the exchange of empirical and theoretical approaches to problems in systems neuroscience, in order to understand how neural systems function.

The Bernstein Network will have an information booth at this event!

Theoretical foundations, as well as practical and ethical aspects are addressed. Participants will benefit from a combination of lectures with group work and discussions, where they will put the learned content into practice.

Herz und Hirn gemeinsam im Fokus

Erkrankungen des Herzens und des Gehirns gehören zu den häufigsten Todesursachen weltweit. Manche Erkrankungen betreffen sogar beide Organe. Obgleich Herz und Gehirn auf den ersten Blick sehr unterschiedlich erscheinen, weisen ihre elektrisch erregbaren Hauptzellen viele Gemeinsamkeiten auf. Beide verwenden ähnliche Funktionseinheiten, die der Erregbarkeit der Zellen dienen und über die sie physiologische Leistungen als Teil aktiver Netzwerke erbringen. Fehlfunktionen dieser Nanometer-kleinen Einheiten führen oft zu Erkrankungen.

Ziel des Göttinger Exzellenzclusters „Multiscale Bioimaging: von molekularen Maschinen zu Netzwerken erregbarer Zellen“ (MBExC) ist, diese Funktionseinheiten von Herz- und Nervenzellen zu verstehen, um daraus neue Diagnostik- und Therapieansätze entwickeln und gesellschaftlich relevante Fragen in der Herz- und Hirnforschung beantworten zu können.

Im Rahmen der Ringvorlesung gewähren MBExC-Wissenschaftler*innen am Beispiel spannender Forschungsergebnisse umfassende Einblicke in den einzigartigen Forschungsansatz des Clusters. Sie stellen innovative Technologien vor, die ihren Ursprung oft in Göttinger Pionierarbeiten haben und am MBExC weiterentwickelt werden, und zeigen auf, wie genau man heutzutage in das Gewebe und die Zelle „hineinschauen“ kann. All diese Technologien liefern uns einzigartige Einblicke in unser Herz und unser Gehirn.

Das Bernstein Center Freiburg und die Fakultät für Biologie laden im Wintersemester 2023/24 wieder zu vielen spannenden Fragen, kreativen Ansätzen und praxisbezogenen Methoden rund um das Thema Neurowissenschaften ein. Herausragende Neurowissenschaftlerinnen und -wissenschaftler aus ganz Deutschland werden jeweils aus Sicht ihrer Disziplin anschaulich und verständlich über ihre Forschung berichten.

Angesprochen wird ein Publikum mit Interesse an den aktuellen Themen der Hirnforschung. Nach einem etwa 40-minütigen Vortrag gibt es Gelegenheit zur Diskussion. Der Eintritt ist frei.

The ninth edition of the Latin American School on Computational Neuroscience – LASCON IX will be held at the NeuroMat Center in the main campus of the University of São Paulo in the city of São Paulo, Brazil. The school will last for four weeks and will cover the following topics: single-cell models (biophysically detailed, reduced and simplified), circuit and network models of biophysically detailed and simplified spiking neurons, probabilistic neuronal models, synaptic plasticity and learning, spike train analysis, neural population models, neuron-glia interaction models, models of extracellular fields, brain criticality, computational psychiatry, traveling waves in neural systems, and dynamics of neuronal functional connectivity. These models will be illustrated with the use of the programs NEURON, NetPyNE, NEST, XPP-AUTO, Brian and The Virtual Brain. The faculty is composed of an international team of world-renowned researchers in the field of computational neuroscience.

Imbizo is a Xhosa word meaning “a gathering to share knowledge”. The IBRO-Simons Computational Neuroscience Imbizo, or isiCNI is exactly that: an opportunity for African and international students to learn about cutting edge research techniques in computational neuroscience.

SpiNNcloud Systems and the GWDG invite you to a Workshop on the SpiNNaker 2 hardware platform. Are you interested in novel hardware designs? Do you work in the fields of theoretical neuroscience, machine learning, robotics, or image and signal processing? Do you want to develop new software and find new ways to apply your research? Then don't miss this unique opportunity to get started with SpiNNaker!

Subcortical sensory circuits play a fundamental role in the perception of the outside world. However, they are often thought of as relay stations that passively transmit sensory information to the cortex or simple effectors of behavioral reflexes. Recent studies, however, suggest that subcortical pathways also perform sophisticated computations, such as integrating peripheral information among many sensory pathways and the animal’s internal states. This meeting will gather leading researchers in the field to discuss different subcortical circuits involving various sensory modalities and revisit their increasingly complex and interconnected contributions to perception, behavior, and cognition. Furthermore, we will delve into various topics which often play an interconnected role with sensory perception and are crucial to a detailed yet holistic understanding of perceptual circuits.

Neuroscience 2023 will be held at the Walter E. Washington Convention Center in Washington, D.C., November 11-15, 2023.
Keeping in mind difficulty around travel to Washington, D.C., to attend Neuroscience 2023 in-person, SfN Council decided to offer a sampling of annual meeting content virtually, including the opportunity for virtual posters.

oin us for an exciting and intellectually stimulating scientific event, "C3: Complexity, Computers, and Consciousness," organised by the Institute of Physics and Imperial College London. This cross-disciplinary trialogue will take place on the 9th and 10th of November at the IOP venue in King's Cross, London.​C3 is a unique event that brings together leading researchers from Complexity Science, Neuroscience, Philosophy, and Computer Science to explore the intriguing interplay between consciousness science and artificial intelligence, sparking innovative ideas and fostering multidimensional perspectives.

This online workshop brings together researchers in the fields of computational neuroscience, machine learning, and neuromorphic engineering to present their work and discuss ways of translating these findings into a better understanding of neural circuits. Topics include artificial and biologically plausible learning algorithms and the dissection of trained spiking circuits toward understanding neural processing. We have a manageable number of talks with ample time for discussions.

The Thalamus Conference aims to extend the dialogue and discussion on the thalamus that began with the previous online Thalamus e-Symposium.

Each year the Bernstein Network invites the international computational neuroscience community to the annual Bernstein Conference for intensive scientific exchange. It has established itself as one of the most renown conferences worldwide in this field, attracting students, postdocs and PIs from around the world to meet and discuss new scientific discoveries.

The EITN Fall School in Computational Neuroscience consists of a 10-day course in theoretical and computational neuroscience, from cellular to whole-brain levels. The course is structured in thematic days with lectures, tutorials, and project work.The course is typically aimed for PhD students, young postdocs, or master students interested to learn more about techniques of computational neuroscience, and the use of various simulation environments for model building. The students will form thematic groups to work on predefined subjects, with the help of tutors.The course will cover cellular models, models of brain signals, circuit models and networks, mean-field models, and whole-brain models. There will be lectures and tutorials associated to these topics.

The ACAIN 2023 symposium and course is an interdisciplinary event featuring leading scientists from AI and Neuroscience, providing a special opportunity to learn about cutting-edge research in the fields of AI, Neuroscience, Neuroscience-Inspired AI, Human-Level AI, and Cognitive Science.

The EBRAINS National Node Germany (NNG) invites to the first EBRAINS NNG Workshop as a back-to-back event of the Bernstein Conference 2023 in Berlin, Germany. You will hear about the EBRAINS RI, its usage, an Expert Discussion on “Digital tools to bridge the gap between experimental and computational neuroscience” and will have the opportunity to network during our NNG lunch.

This workshop will address major topics and challenges in this field:

* Advances in neurotechnology
* Advances in the understanding of visual information processing
* Novel methods for combining theory and technology

It will bring together experimentalists, technologists, medical scientists, and theoreticians who are the experts in getting meaningful signals into neuronal circuits actively engaged in information processing.

The INCF Assembly is a unique venue where neuroscience standards developers, infrastructure providers, and software developers have the opportunity to interact with the research community to share the latest advancements in neuroinformatics.

This year’s topic is: Linking hypotheses: where neuroscience, computation, and cognition meet. Eleven speakers will discuss their research and views on the intersection of systems, behavioral, and computational neuroscience from a wide array of viewpoints: from basic network interactions in the brain probed at the electrophysiological and mechanistic levels, to complex animal behavior and cognition. This year’s conference is an outstanding platform bringing together sub-fields in the neurosciences that find themselves, regrettably often, treated in isolation. Young researchers will have the opportunity to exchange ideas and raise questions in formal and informal discussions. There will also be a poster session for which we welcome submissions.

From September 12 - 13, 2023, the Human Brain Project will celebrate its successful conclusion with a public scientific symposium at Forschungszentrum Jülich. In addition to the international project partners, representatives from politics and the media are cordially invited to attend.

In short presentations, researchers from the Human Brain Project will highlight the project’s achievements. The symposium will be accompanied by scientific exhibits, an impressive picture gallery and hands on trainings. In guided tours guests can explore the laboratories and facilities of Forschungszentrum Jülich and get insights into the practical work behind the Human Brain Project.

This summer school should be helpful to experimental vision researchers for learning computational methods, vision theorists and modellers for closer links with experimental data, computer vision researchers and physical scientists for learning about biological vision, and, more generally, vision scientists interested in topics and approaches in systems vision science.

Collective behaviour is all around us from flocks of birds to schools of fish to human crowds. Collective behaviour happens across multiple spatial and temporal scales making it one of the most ubiquitous, natural phenomena around us. For a long time, organismal collective behaviour has been studied separately across many disciplines from biology to ecology to physics to engineering. The aim of this school is to bring multiple disciplinary approaches to collective behaviour, studying a wide variety of organisms using different methods. The school thus aims to prepare the next generation of scientists that are exposed to a breadth of approaches to study collective behaviour.

This course provides broad training in modern approaches to the study of neural mechanisms underlying behavior, perception, and cognition. Through a combination of lectures, exercises, and projects, students investigate neural systems at the molecular, cellular, and organismal levels using state-of-the-art techniques. The eight weeks are divided into two-week cycles, providing participants with an in-depth familiarity with several different experimental model systems. In the first cycle, students study a simple invertebrate model system to develop general experimental skills in electrophysiology, neuroanatomy, and quantitative analysis of physiological and behavioral data. In subsequent cycles, students work on a series of different preparations, providing them with a breadth of knowledge in the field. The list of experimental model systems is updated year-to-year, but always includes a diverse array of vertebrate and invertebrate preparations, chosen to illustrate key concepts and novel techniques in the field. The goal of the course is to expose students to diverse approaches to the investigation of the neural basis of behavior.

Neuromatch Academy (NMA) teaches computational techniques crucial for success in academia and industry. It serves thousands of students each year with hundreds of teaching assistants (TA). Students learn by solving problems in small groups and by running group projects; they learn in many languages in an incredibly supportive environment.