Past, Present and Future of Open Science (Emergent session): An open discussion about low-dimensional representations in cognitive and systems neuroscience

[jsheunis]

An open discussion about low-dimensional representations in cognitive and systems neuroscience

By Dan Lurie, University of California, Berkeley

• Theme: Past, Present and Future of Open Science
• Format: Emergent session

Abstract

The brain is one of (if not the most) complex systems in the known universe. As such, it is natural for those of us studying brain structure, function, and mental processes to seek out simplified representations (networks, gradients, manifolds, cognitive concepts, diagnoses).

To what extent do these models accurately capture underlying mechanisms? How do we best map findings and concepts across models? Can a model be useful if it is "merely" descriptive?

In the tradition of previous OSR discussions of hot topics (time varying functional connectivity - 2017, theory in network neuroscience - 2019), please join us for an open discussion of these and related questions.

Feel free to comment below with points you'd like to raise during the conversation!

Useful Links

Tagging @danlurie

[danlurie]

Would like to request the 01:00, 02:00, or 19:00 (preferred) slots on July 3 (times/days in UTC).

[4n4574514]

Great initiative! :)

[danlurie]

Many tweets expressing interest in participating in this session: https://twitter.com/danjlurie/status/1278098378774044673

[adeelrazi]

Exciting topic. Very interested in participating and seeing how it unfolds in future!

[cassgvp]

Would like to request the 01:00, 02:00, or 19:00 (preferred) slots on July 3 (times/days in UTC).

Thank you, @danlurie. We'll send you the link to book your preferred time in our schedule shortly.

[danielemarinazzo]

Thanks for this, I'm interested of course

[makto-toruk]

Interested! Thanks for organizing.

[cassgvp]

Hi @danlurie Please could you confirm if any additional speakers will be joining you for this discussion? This will allow is to determine the best format for broadcast. Thank you!

[owenodaly]

I'd be very interested. thank you for organising

[danlurie]

Hi @danlurie Please could you confirm if any additional speakers will be joining you for this discussion? This will allow is to determine the best format for broadcast. Thank you!

Hey! There won't really be "speakers" per se. I plant to solicit topic suggestions ahead of time from people who plan to participate, and then I'll do my best to guide an open discussion around those topics. I dunno how easy it is to have multiple people doing video simultaneously on Crowdcast; is there a way to pump Zoom into Crowdcast?

[cassgvp]

Hey! There won't really be "speakers" per se. I plant to solicit topic suggestions ahead of time from people who plan to participate, and then I'll do my best to guide an open discussion around those topics. I dunno how easy it is to have multiple people doing video simultaneously on Crowdcast; is there a way to pump Zoom into Crowdcast?

We are all about pumping zoom into crowdcast :). If you would like to have more than 3 people on screen at one time, we will host a zoom call for you, stream that into crowdcast, then carry text questions from the audience back to the zoom call. This has worked nicely for the larger emergent sessions we have hosted. If you would like to have more of a dynamic on-off-screen with various speakers, we could stick with crowdcast. We do sometimes lose time with new speakers having audio troubles in crowdcast, so zoom is generally a bit more stable. The tradeoff is a slight delay between audience and speaker interactions, but this has not been disruptive for other session :)

Our awesome team of speaker comms volunteers will be in touch with you shortly to explain the options in more detail. Please look out for an email from ohbm.osr@gmail.com and carry on the discussion there.

Thank you!

[Starborn]

@danlurie how did it go? please share the links and summaries sorry I could not participate but was busy with another panel

…

On Thu, Jul 2, 2020 at 6:39 PM cassgvp ***@***.***> wrote: Hey! There won't really be "speakers" per se. I plant to solicit topic suggestions ahead of time from people who plan to participate, and then I'll do my best to guide an open discussion around those topics. I dunno how easy it is to have multiple people doing video simultaneously on Crowdcast; is there a way to pump Zoom into Crowdcast? We are all about pumping zoom into crowdcast :). If you would like to have more than 3 people on screen at one time, we will host a zoom call for you, stream that into crowdcast, then carry text questions from the audience back to the zoom call. This has worked nicely for the larger emergent sessions we have hosted. If you would like to have more of a dynamic on-off-screen with various speakers, we could stick with crowdcast. We do sometimes lose time with new speakers having audio troubles in crowdcast, so zoom is generally a bit more stable. The tradeoff is a slight delay between audience and speaker interactions, but this has not been disruptive for other session :) Our awesome team of speaker comms volunteers will be in touch with you shortly to explain the options in more detail. Please look out for an email from ***@***.*** and carry on the discussion there. Thank you! — You are receiving this because you are subscribed to this thread. Reply to this email directly, view it on GitHub <#94 (comment)>, or unsubscribe <https://github.com/notifications/unsubscribe-auth/ACFKUCJKYNK6ZE7CSGXLHYLRZRPUFANCNFSM4OMZJOSA> .

[danlurie]

Hi all. A little bit overwhelmed by the amount of interest this has generated. Given the time we have for this session, we will only just start to scratch the surface of these topics. That said, given our newfound expertise in virtual workshops and conferences, there is no reason why we can't continue this conversation once OHBM is finished. More on this idea below.

In attempt to streamline our discussion, I've created a page where you can suggest topics in advance, and vote on topics suggested by others. I'll try to guide our conversation based on the suggestions that get the most votes. I think a good plan for now (given time constraints) would be to try and use this as an opportunity to come to a consensus on what the major questions are surrounding these topics, rather than to try to dive too deeply into any one topic.

Go here to make suggestions and view ideas suggested by others.

If you're interested in continuing this conversation after OHBM (through mailing list discussions, Zoom meetings, etc), I have created a Google Group where we can coordinate: Low-dimensional representations in cognitive and systems neuroscience