Local Circuits: Memory, Neuroscience and AI

This symposium will bring together faculty and early-career researchers from across the university to explore how memories are formed, structured and used to guide behavior in both biological and artificial systems. Spanning experimental and computational approaches, presentations will highlight cutting-edge work in systems and cognitive neuroscience, machine learning and theoretical modeling. Although memory in artificial systems operates very differently from memory in the brain, both fields confront shared questions: How does memory shape learning and generalization? How do insights from neuroscience influence AI development—and how can AI, in turn, illuminate biological memory? What would it mean to remember everything, and how might limitless retention affect the efficiency of learning or the ability to identify what information truly matters? 

Speakers will examine how distributed brain circuits encode and retrieve memories, how sensory and motor representations are integrated into coherent experiences and how what we remember shapes how we act.

By uniting perspectives from animal models, human neuroimaging, and artificial neural networks the symposium will showcase how AI is not only inspired by brain function, but is increasingly used as a powerful tool to interrogate it. 

This symposium is part of The Zuckerman Institute’s Local Circuits talk series, which brings together Columbia faculty to foster collaboration around cross-cutting themes in mind, brain and behavior. As part of our ongoing efforts to highlight the work of the Institute's Affiliate Faculty across the University, the Zuckerman Institute also hosts Local Circuits seminars as part of our Tuesdays@10 lineup of talks and events.

All Columbia ID holders are welcome, registration is required.

Opening Remarks:

Angela V. Olinto, PhD, Provost of the University, Professor of Astronomy and of Physics, Columbia University

Speakers Include:

Chris Baldassano, PhD, Associate Professor of Psychology, Columbia University 

Selmaan N. Chettih, PhD, Associate Research Scientist, Aronov Lab, Zuckerman Institute

Christine Denny, PhD, Associate Professor of Clinical Neurobiology (in Psychiatry), Columbia University Irving Medical Center

Stefano Fusi, PhD, Professor of Neuroscience, Principal Investigator in the Zuckerman Institute, Columbia University

Todd Morrill, PhD Student, Department of Computer Science

Scott Small, MD, Boris and Rose Katz Professor of Neurology, Director of the Alzheimer's Disease Research Center, Columbia University Irving Medical Center

Kim Stachenfeld, PhD, Senior Research Scientist, Google DeepMind; Adjunct Assistant Professor of Neuroscience, Columbia University 

Minni Sun, PhD, Postdoctoral Research Scientist, Center for Theoretical Neuroscience, Zuckerman Institute

Erin Welch, PhD Student, Department of Psychology, Davachi Lab

Richard Zemel, PhD, Trianthe Dakolias Professor of Engineering and Applied Science; Professor of Computer Science; Director of the NSF AI Institute for Artificial and Natural Intelligence (ARNI), Columbia University

Moderator:

Daphna Shohamy, PhD, Kavli Professor of Brain Science; Director of the Zuckerman Institute; Co-director of the Kavli Institute for Brain Science, Columbia University

Schedule

1:10 - 1:35 PM Richard Zemel, PhD, Continual learning: AI formulations and challenges

1:35 - 2:00 PM Christine Denny, PhD, Tagging the moment: How genetic tools and AI are revealing how we remember

2:00 - 2:25 PM Chris Baldassano, PhD, How the brain uses schematic knowledge to reconstruct the past and predict the future

2:25 - 3:10 PM Trainee Short Talks

Minni Sun, PhD, Flexible skill composition and continual learning via contextual inference

Selmaan N. Chettih, PhD, A unique hippocampal barcode labels individual memories for encoding and recall

Todd Morrill, Moving beyond static data with sequential predictive coding

Erin Welch, Quantifying the qualitative: Using transformer models to evaluate everyday autobiographical narratives

3:10 - 3:35 PM, Coffee Break

3:35 - 4:00 PM Stefano Fusi, PhD, Computational principles of neural memory systems

4:00 - 4:25 PM Kim Stachenfeld, PhD, Understanding relational memory in brains and LLMs

4:25 - 4:50 PM Scott Small, MD, Pathological and normal forgetting

4:50 - 5:30 PM Panel Discussion (with all faculty speakers), Moderator: Daphna Shohamy, PhD

Presented by the Alan Kanzer Center for Cognition and Reasoning