Towards a new Neuro- Network: Meeting 3 May 2016

The UK Node, along with eFutures, held a meeting which brought together different types of neuroscientists (from clinical to experimental to computational modellers to neuro-engineers) to enable co-operation.

The final programme is available. Links to the slides from the presentations can be found later in this page.

A pdf report on this meeting is available.

The meeting was a a 1 day meeting at Liverpool University’s campus in London (and here's a map of the area in London, courtesy of Google). We had some funding from the Wellcome Trust for this meeting, and supported junior faculty and student delegates attending.

Aims/outline

The UK is a world-leader in neuroscience research, and is well-supported by the major funding agencies (Wellcome, MRC, BBSRC, EPSRC and others). Like many other scientific disciplines, modern neuroscience generates ever-increasing volumes of data using diverse technologies. However, neuroscience research is often fragmented and split across clinical studies, experimental studies (on animals or cultures), computational and modeling studies and neuro-engineering. Rather than creating a major new projects, we believe that a good way forward for the UK is a smaller-scale national network. The aim of this network is specifically to encourage and coordinate activities between two main groups (1) clinical and experimental neuroscientists and (2) computational neuroscientists/ neuroinformaticians/ neuro-engineers.

This meeting aims to lay the groundwork for a network that will help to bring these disparate groups together. It has the support of the UK Node of the International Neuroinformatics Coordinating Facility (INCF), the British Neuroscience Association (BNA) , eFutures (an EPSRC Network on electronics research), the Mathematical Neuroscience Network, and the Wellcome Trust, and it is building on the work of these groups.

Format of meeting

This was a 1-day meeting, from 09:30 to 16:45, with talks in the morning, followed by breakout groups which aimed to to plot a course forward for this network.

The programme included the following presentations

Predicting neural activity during natural behaviour: cross-disciplinary research in sensory neuroscience, Dr Rasmus Petersen, Leader of the Neural Coding Laboratory, Faculty of Life Sciences, University of Manchester
From new experimental technologies to neuromorphic computing – Engineers are here to help, honest, Dr Piotr Dudek, Reader, School of Electrical and Electronic Engineering, University of Manchester
Informatics and neurosciences critical care, Dr Ari Ercole, Lecturer and Consultant Anesthetist, Department of Medicine, University of Cambridge
In vivo and ex vivo imaging of neural circuits: opportunities and challenges, Dr Simon Schultz, Reader in Neurotechnology, Department of Bioengineering, Imperial College, London.
Population recordings from the retina: lessons learned for better collaboration in neurophysiology, Dr Evelyne Sernagor, Reader on Developmental Neuroscience, Institute of Neuroscience, University of Newcastle.
The British Neuroscience Association and this proposed neuro-network, Professor Narender Ramnani, Professor of Psychology, Royal Holloway, University of London, and British Neuroscience Association.
A Strategic Perspective, Dr. Kathryn Adcock, Medical Research Council.

There is an outline draft document about the idea of the network