QMNet Talk: How to use Causality without correlation to Download brains into computers

Melbourne Centre for Data Science is proud to support the University of Melbourne Quantitative Research Methods Network (QMNET). The 2021 QMNET seminar series ran as weekly talks on a variety of topics that span disciplinary boundaries.

The next QMNet talk is presented by Gerald Pao.

Gerald Pao hails the famed Salk Institute of Biology and will be talking on 'How to use Causality without correlation to Download Brains into Computers'. As many of you would know, methods for causal modeling, real-time biophysical measurement, and overcoming computing challenges through massive parallelization come together profoundly in the neurosciences. There are also very real avenues for scientific discoveries that are regularly causing revolutions both in how we understand the brain and how we might intervene to prevent and cure neurophysiological and related maladies. Concurrently, these developments are offering us opportunities to change the way we understand ourselves as biological beings, and what our cybernetic and other potentials might be in the coming centuries.

Gerald Pao's talk will address all of these topics, offering an exciting glimpse into what is possible when nonparametric causal modeling, real-time biophysical measurement, and massive computing parallelization come together. By analysing neuronal firing patterns in a whole-of-brain analysis, he and his team were able to reconstruct the causal network defining an entire brain. It's truly exciting work and on the cutting edge in a variety of different research areas.

Talk title: How to use Causality without correlation to Download Brains into Computers

When: Fri 13 Aug, 10am AEST