LCN is the Laboratory of Computational Neuroscience at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Lausanne (EPFL). The LCN is headed by Professor Wulfram Gerstner and has research activities in the area of neural networks and computational neuroscience.
The LCN is part of the Brain Mind Institute in the School of Life Sciences and of the I&C School of Computer and Communication Sciences. PhD students at the LCN are part of the EPFL Doctoral School, either in Neuroscience, or in Computer and Communication Science
Research Mission
At the LCN, we use neural modeling in order to understand the role of dynamics for computation in brain-like structures. Dynamics and temporal aspects play a role on all levels of information processing in the brain. On the neuronal level, we study aspects of temporal coding by `spikes’, i.e., the short electrical pulses (action potentials) that neurons use for signal transmission. On the behavioral level we focus on the dynamics of spatial navigation in a known or unknown environment. On all levels, temporal aspects of learning play a role, e.g. spike-time dependent learning or reinforcement learning.
