Alessio Franci (ULiège, Montefiore): "Excitable Cognition"

Monday 17 Feb 2025, 14:00 → 15:01 Europe/Brussels

B-30/0-000 - Big meeting room (CRC)

Abstract: Understanding how the functional scale of cognition and the cellular scale of excitable neuronal activity are related is a fundamental question of neuroscience with important implications for both biological and artificial intelligence. I propose that this problem can be addressed by focusing on decision-making as a universal and evolutionary conserved cognitive function and by studying it using mathematical modeling grounded in control and bifurcation theory. Excitability can then be understood as the synthesis of two defining properties of adaptive decision-making: the existence of a tunable threshold that determines the making of a decision and the existence of a reset mechanism that allows returning to a neutral state and the making of new decisions. The derived theory is suited both for the analysis of biological decision-making, including in groups, and for the design of artificial decision-making, including in algorithms and in hardware.

Bio: Alessio Franci is a professor in the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science of the University of Liege and one of the founders of the ULiege Neuroengineering Lab. He is also an awardee of a WEL-T starting grant from the WEL Research Institute. Alessio received his M.Sc. in Theoretical Physics from the University of Pisa in 2008 and his PhD in Physics and Control Theory from the University of Paris Sud 11 in 2012. Between 2012 and 2015 he was a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Liege and INRIA Lille, and a long term visiting researcher at the University of Cambridge. Between 2015 and 2022 he was a professor in the Math Department of the National Autonomous University of Mexico. His research interests are in brain-inspired computing and control theory, neuromorphic engineering, computational neuroscience, and applications to robotics and to the design of intelligent sensors and actuators.

Teams link. 

 

Teams Link