CNS-PDS February: Björn Jörges & Roberto Budzinski

Speaker #1

Björn Jörges, York University

Title of the presentation:

Where are you Moving? Assessing Precision, Accuracy, and Temporal Dynamics in Multisensory Heading Perception Using Continuous Psychophysic

Bio:

Björn is currently a Postdoc at York University, Toronto, working in visuo-vestibular multisensory integration and predictive processing. He uses an interdisciplinary approach that combines behavioral tasks administered predominantly in VR and computational modelling to address the impact of online vestibular cues as well as vestibular priors on visual tasks like the estimation of time-to-contact, self-motion, or depth. He is an early adopter and advocate for Open Science practices and proud and vocal member of the LGBTIQA+ community. Most recently he has been excited about a novel paradigm from vision science called “Continuous Psychophysics”, which couples continuous stimulation and continuous participant responses. This paradigm allows to collect large amounts of data in short amounts of time and with uncharacteristically low amounts of participant suffering.

@bjorges.bsky.social

Speaker #2

Roberto Budzinski, Western University,

Title of the presentation:

Predicting traveling waves: a new mathematical technique to link the structure of a network to the specific patterns of neural activity

Roberto is a physicist by training, working at the intersection of network theory, computational neuroscience, and AI. He earned his PhD in Physics from the Federal University of Paraná, Brazil, in 2021. After that, he moved to Canada to join Lyle Muller’s lab at Western University, where he is currently a postdoctoral researcher at both Western University and the Fields Institute. His research focuses on understanding the relationship between the connectivity patterns in a network and the resulting dynamics. Recently, he developed a new mathematical approach that shows the importance of structural connectivity and time delays in generating specific traveling waves in brain networks. More broadly, he is interested in studying spatiotemporal dynamics in neural systems and exploring their potential computational role. 

 X : @budzinski_r 

https://www.rbudzinski.com

https://zoom.us/webinar/register/3217374850132/WN_Judvgbe9T6-z8k6xoNIr7A