2 Computer Science Course Programs in Japan

We often hear about the relevance and importance of AI in our lives, but often these discussions are centered either around the negative and dystopian topics of surveillance or the hyper positive Silicon Valley views of how this will solve everything. In this class we will look instead at the middle, and how we take a new humanistic approach to this technology by exploring new interactions that can make a positive impact in our lives.

Computational neuroscience has a rich history going back to the original Hodgkin-Huxley model of the action potential and the work of Wilfrid Rall on cable theory and passive dendrites. More recently networks consisting of simple integrate-and-fire neurons have become popular. Nowadays standard simulator software exists to apply these modeling methods, which can then be used to interpret and predict experimental findings. This course introduces some standard modeling methods with an emphasis on simulation of single neurons and synapses and an introduction to integrate-and-fire networks. Each theoretical topic is linked to one or more seminal papers that will be discussed in class. A number of simple exercises using the NEURON simulator will demonstrate single neuron and synapse modeling.