Pre-start

Neural Signal Processing & Machine Learning

ELEC/BIOE 548 | ELEC 483

Fall 2022

Episode 3: Cellular Neuroanatomy

Still COVID free. Sorry, I have a defense I NEED/WANT to attend
There were questions about coding. Python preferred MATLAB supported. Other languages are up to you to work with.
- I'll start Tuesday with a quick tutorial of using the preferred style for homeworks (Jupyter notebooks)
- FROM LAST TIME WILL DO NEXT WEEK
I watched the lecture from last week and need to do better
Homework 1 & videos to be released this weekend
Office hours poll...
Slides credit for today: adapted from Caleb Kemere and David Caprette

Introduction. Class & brains

Fundamental neurobiology. How do neurons fire? How/what do we record?

Modeling spike trains. First bit of analysis work and understanding firing properties of neurons.

Classification. Making machines learn. Which direction is a monkey trying to reach? Bayesian decoding.

Point processes. Continued modeling work of neurons.

Clustering/Mixture models. Making machines learn some more. Spike sorting.

Continuous decoding. Kalman filters. Machines continue to learn.

Spectral analysis? LFP interpretation in spectral domain. But also kinda in clustering.

Introduction to Neuroscience
- Ch 1: The brain and behavior
- Ch 2: Nerve cells and behavior - TODAY
How are neural signals generated?
- Ch 7: Membrane potential - TODAY
- Ch 9: Propagated Signaling: the action potential - TODAY
How do neurons communicate with each other?
- Ch 10: Overview of synaptic transmission
- Ch12: Synaptic integration

Distributed processing
- Broca's area & Wernicke's area shows this well
Different areas of the brain are needed for memory and learning based on type of learning and type of memories
- Patient HM

What makes up a brain?

http://www.microscopyu.com/featuredmicroscopist/deerinck/deerinckgallery.html

Rat cerebellum Mid-Sagittal Section

Glia --- for neuro-hipsters?

Glia are support cells, out number neurons 1.5 to 1
Glia are not directly involved in information processing*
- may not be fully true...
Glia work
- support neuron structure
- produce myelin used to electrically insulate neural axons
- Scavange to remove debris after injury or cell death
- Sop up previously-released chemical transmitters

Glia

NEURONS!!! --- Mainstream.

Nerve cells (neurons) are the basic unit of the brain
- pumpkin spice lattes are back
Neurons are relatively simple in their morphology/anatomy
Approximately 100 billion neurons in the human brain (10 billion of which are in the cortex...)
About 1000 different types, but all have the same basic architecture
Thus "complexity" arises primarily from precise anatomical circuits, not neuron specialization
Neurons with basically similar properties produce quite different actions because of their connections with each other.