On-site PhD conferral Maryam Karimian

Keywords: synchronization, oscillations, gamma oscillations, plasticity, perception and perceptual learning, figure-ground segregation

"In Sync: Neural Oscillations and their Relation to Visual Perception and Learning" 

Neural oscillations and their synchronization play an important role in functions such as perception and learning. In this thesis, a phase oscillator model is used to simulate the dynamics of neural networks of the brain, where each group of neurons is considered as a phase oscillator. The process of learning has been investigated in the form of synaptic and myelin plasticity in an abstract network which can represent neural networks at any spatial scale. The role of gamma oscillations and their synchronization is identified in the perception and perceptual learning of figure-ground segregation. Here, texture stimuli are used in psychophysics experimentation as well as in computational models that simulate synchronization of gamma oscillations and plasticity in the primary visual cortex (V1).

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