Dan Goodman | Neuroscience

thesamovar — Sun, 28 Jan 2007 18:46:20 +0000

Dan Goodman

I am a postdoctoral researcher in the field of theoretical neuroscience. I'm currently working at the Ecole normale supérieure with Alain de Cheveigné and Christian Lorenzi on computational models of hearing loss.

Research Interests

I am interested in neural mechanisms underlying computations performed by the brain. In particular, I'm interested in understanding spike-timing based codes and computation, especially in the auditory system.

Projects

Brian

"Brian" is a software package for simulating spiking neural networks. Specifically, it is a package for the Python programming language providing functions and classes designed to make writing simulations of neural networks as easy and flexible as possible. See Brian's web page.

The most recent release of Brian added the Brian.hears package, for auditory modelling. For the next major release, we will be focussing on running Brian on GPU chips (inexpensive massively parallel processors available in consumer graphics cards).

Sound localisation

Sound localisation is the ability of many animals to determine to a greater or lesser degree of accuracy the direction from which a sound is coming. I am working on a neural model of this ability based on synchrony and coincidence detection. The model uses biologically plausible principles, and addresses acoustically realistic situations. In particular, it uses head-related transfer functions (HRTFs) recorded from human subjects instead of artificially introduced interaural time difference (ITD) and level difference (ILD) cues. It is able to localise sounds in the vertical as well as horizontal plane, and eliminate front-back confusions. The model also addresses how we can learn to localise after a change in head or ear shape, such as happens during development. Hopefully, this model will also lead to effective new algorithms to localise sounds in the presence of distractors, noise, reverberations, etc.

Spike sorting

I worked with Kenneth Harris to extend the KlustaKwik spike sorting algorithm to work on the next generation of multi-electrode recordings.

Hearing loss

I am working with Alain de Cheveigné and Christian Lorenzi on computational models of hearing loss.

Selected publications

Publications

My publications are also available on Google Scholar Citations.

In preparation and under review

Brette R, Goodman DFM.
Brian simulator.
Invited article for Scholarpedia.

2011

2010

2009

2008

Goodman D, Brette R (2008).
Brian: a simulator for spiking neural networks in Python.
Frontiers in Neuroinformatics, 2(5), doi:10.3389/neuro.11.005.2008.

2006

Goodman D (2006).
Spirals in the boundaries of slices of quasifuchsian space.
Conformal Geometry and Dynamics 10. [pdf]

Presentations and Posters

Spotlight presentation of poster on "Learning to localise sounds with spiking neural networks" at NIPS, Vancouver (December 2010)
Co-author of presentation given by Cyrille Rossant on “Playdoh: a lightweight Python library for distributed computation and optimisation” at EuroSciPy (July 2010)
Tutorial on Brian (via Skype) at Telluride in Colorado (July 2010)
Talk on "Computation with spikes" at Mathematical Neuroscience, Edinburgh (April 2010)
Poster on sound localisation at Mathematical Neuroscience, Edinburgh (April 2010)
Tutorial on Python and Brian at Neurocomp in Bordeaux, France (September 2009)
Tutorial on Python and Brian at the Python in neuroscience workshop at CNS, Berlin (July 2009)
Poster on sound localisation at CNS, Berlin (July 2009)
Presentation on Brian at the Gatsby computational neuroscience unit, London (July 2009)
Presentation on sound localisation at The Ear Institute, London (July 2009)
Presentation on sound localisation at CerCo , Toulouse, France (Jan 2009)
Presentation on Brian at software interoperability workshop at CNS, Portland OR, USA (July 2008)
Poster on Brian at CNS, Portland OR, USA (July 2008)
Tutorial on Brian at "Using Python in computational neuroscience" workshop in Freiburg, Germany (June 2008)
Presentation on Brian at Visiontrain meeting in Malmo, Sweden (May 2008)
Presentation on Brian at Facets CodeJam 2 in Gif-sur-Yvette, France (May 2008)
Poster on Brian at the Mathematical Neuroscience Meeting in Edinburgh, Scotland (March 2008)

Other

Reviewer for Frontiers in Neuroinformatics, Neural Computation, the Journal of Computational Neuroscience and the Journal of Neuroscience Methods.
Designed the front cover of the May 2010 issue of Neuron (right, click for higher resolution version), featuring Agus et al.'s "Rapid Formation of Robust Auditory Memories: Insights from Noise".