Talking to the brain in its own language: from simulations to cortical implants

While substantial progress has been made in the past 80 years of intense research, the principles by which our brain encodes visual information, even at the earliest stages of processing, remains poorly understood. Concurrently, the emerging field of brain prosthetic implants for vision restoration is heavily dependent on a precise understanding of visual coding in cortical networks.

In this presentation, I will first illustrate how large-scale, biologically nuanced simulations of cortical networks can synthesize fragmented experimental data, thereby enhancing our grasp of visual information encoding principles in our brain. Subsequently, I will discuss how such simulations can be instrumental in devising stimulation protocols for cortical visual implants. Finally, I will present a newly devised method, born out of insights from these simulations, which estimates the visual coding beneath the implant along with its validation on data collected from blind implanted volunteers.