ESP Biography

The brain is a tangle of interconnected neurons constantly communicating with one another via electrical and chemical signals. To the interested neuroscientist, some of these signals are easy to predict; for example, cones in the retina respond reliably to the wavelength of light hitting them. Yet in much of the brain, predicting what makes a neuron fire is a tricky task indeed. Why might an animal benefit from having unpredictable neural activity, and how might the brain generate such unpredictability? It turns out the answer involves not just animal behavior, neuronal biophysics and brain circuits, but also the mathematical theories of chaotic dynamics, graphs, and statistical learning. In this class, we will run breathlessly through these topics and more, with an emphasis on the fundamental connections between biology and mathematics that give rise to even the most commonplace of animal behaviors.