I just visited the ESI SyNC 2024 conference on the topic of "Time in the brain". There, I interviewed Hugo Merchant, an electrophysiologist at UNAM in Juriquilla, Mexico. Hugo works with macaques, who can rhythmically tap their fingers synchronized to a visual or auditory beat. By studying macaque neural activity in dimensionality-reduced spaces, he wants to understand how the brain encodes different time intervals. For an overview of our conversation, see the timestamps below.
Timestamps:
(00:00:00) - Intro
(00:02:57) - Monkeys rhythmic finger tapping
(00:08:27) - Timing network in pre-motor cortex and basal ganglia
(00:12:43) - Circular neural trajectories
(00:16:08) - Mapping latent space to single-cell physiology
(00:20:15) - Experimentally slowing the clock
(00:23:19) - Spatial organization of circuits
(00:27:59) - Error correction & single-trial analyses
(00:38:57) - Bayesian & SNN models
For Apple Podcast users, find books/papers links at: https://akseliilmanen.wixsite.com/home/post/pod09
