Events Detail

Speaker:
Dr. Ahmed ElHady, Universität Konstanz/CASCB

This event is part of an event series „CASCB Seminar Series Winter 2021/22“.

To survive in an uncertain and dynamic environment, animals need to integrate the relevant information in their environment. Systems neuroscientists have conventionally  simplified and made this problem more tractable by studying trained behaviors where they train animals to integrate sensory evidence. This idealization has allowed neuroscientific investigation into neural mechanisms underlying integration. In my talk, I will show that one can train rats to integrate in a dynamic environment where the statistics of the sensory environment is controlled and get insights into the neural mechanisms underlying changes of mind. I will present theoretical work showing that integration, as a behavioral computation, can be extended from the realm of trained behaviors to (social) foraging behaviors performed by animals naturally thus bridging a much needed gap between mechanistic models in systems neuroscience and behavioural ecology. This modeling approach opens up the opportunity to quantitatively study neural mechanisms of naturalistic decision making. 

If you like to attend in person, we kindly ask you to register­

• https://zoom.us/j/96510392387
• Meeting-ID: 965 1039 2387