Meeting summary:

The first meeting took place in Goodman building, Givat Ram at 31.12.2019.

We started the meeting by getting to know the participants and understanding their different backgrounds and motivations in joining the group. We then moved to our main goal for the meeting, introducing the varied topics that came up during the planning of the hevruta as possible topics for discussion during the activity of the group. These topics are:

1. The different functional roles that have been assigned to oscillations in the literature from controlling motion to speech perception.
2. The different mechanisms by which oscillations have been suggested to support neural functions. For examples, synchronizing neurons sensitive to different features of the same object as a way to solve the binding problem.
3. The different biological mechanisms that enable oscillations. For example, the competitive interactions between different current types in pacemaker neurons in the heart, or interactions between excitatory and inhibitory populations of neurons in a network.
4. The methodological aspects of studying oscillations, and pitfalls of those methods. For example, what should we count as evidence for an oscillation? What other dynamics might confound the analysis of frequency spectra?

Many participants expressed their interest in trying to solve the apparent disconnect between the somewhat vague treatments of oscillations in cognitive sciences ("You can find anything you want in the EEG, even pink elephants") to the actual biology of the brain. In addition, many participants were interested in learning more about the methodologies used to study oscillations in practice.

Participants (PI in parentheses):

Lian Hollander

Yaron Cohen

Noa Rahamin

Alex Kazakov

Moran Aharoni

Vitaly Lerner

Inbar Kotzer

Noa Guttman

Carmel Ash

Ruoyi Cao

Alon Salhov

Nora Vrieler

Gal Vishne

Nir Ofir