Theoretical neuroscience

Computational neuroscience (also known as theoretical neuroscience or mathematical neuroscience) is a branch of neuroscience which employs mathematical models, theoretical analysis and abstractions of the brain to understand the principles that govern the development, structure, physiology and cognitive abilities of the nervous system.

Computational neuroscience focuses on the description of functional and biologically plausible neurons (and neural systems) and their physiology and dynamics, and it is therefore not concerned with biologically unrealistic disciplines such as connectionism, machine learning, artificial neural networks, artificial intelligence and computational learning theory.

In theory, computational neuroscience would be a sub-field of theoretical neuroscience which employs computational simulations to validate and solve the mathematical models. However, since the biologically plausible mathematical models formulated in neuroscience are in most cases too complex to be solved analytically, the two terms are essentially synonyms and are used interchangeably. The term mathematical neuroscience is also used sometimes, to stress the quantitative nature of the field.

The mathematical models formulated in computational neuroscience are useful since they capture the essential features of the biological system at multiple spatial-temporal scales, from membrane currents, proteins, and chemical coupling to network oscillations, columnar and topographic architecture, and learning and memory. Furthermore, these computational models frame hypotheses that can be directly tested by biological or psychological experiments.

The term "computational neuroscience" was introduced by Eric L. Schwartz, who organized a conference, held in 1985 in Carmel, California, at the request of the Systems Development Foundation to provide a summary of the current status of a field which until that point was referred to by a variety of names, such as neural modeling, brain theory and neural networks. The proceedings of this definitional meeting were published in 1990 as the book Computational Neuroscience. The first open international meeting focused on Computational Neuroscience was organized by James M. Bower and John Miller in San Francisco, California in 1989 and has continued each year since as the annual CNS meeting. The first graduate educational program in computational neuroscience was organized as the Computational and Neural Systems Ph.D. program at the California Institute of Technology in 1985.

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