Abstract:

This talk will present a survey of the abilities of biological
neural systems to process information, compute and learn. We will
begin with a short historical perspective describing some of the
initial attempts by people like Wiener, von Neumann and Turing to
characterize these systems, and move on to discuss current
understanding of neural information processing. In this part we
will focus on some of the essential differences between
computation by real neuronal networks and by artificial devices.
We will then discuss some initial approaches to developing a
theory of computation and learning in neural systems, based on the
combination of mathematical modeling and an experimental system
based on cortical neurons grown in a dish. The talk will be mainly
expository, laying down more questions than answers.