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SUMMARY:Computational Neuroscience Journal Club - Dr Theoklitos Amvrosiadi
 s (University of Cambridge)
DTSTART:20240221T140000Z
DTEND:20240221T160000Z
UID:TALK212566@talks.cam.ac.uk
CONTACT:Puria Radmard
DESCRIPTION:Please join us for our Computational Neuroscience journal club
  on Wednesday 21st February at 2pm UK time in the CBL seminar roo\n\nThe t
 itle is "Meta Reinforcement Learning"\, presented by Luke Johnston and The
 oklitos Amvrosiadis.\n\nSummary:\n\nFollowing on from last week’s journa
 l club on distributional reinforcement learning\, this week we examine ano
 ther widely discussed topic within RL - that of meta reinforcement learnin
 g. Meta RL has long been of interest to neuroscientists for the extent to 
 which it better reflects the macroscopic behaviour of animals\, where the 
 ability to generalise learning experiences across contexts (ie ‘learning
  to learn’) forms a vital part of higher-order cognition. However unlike
  traditional single task learning - where\, for example\, the mechanisms o
 f classical conditioning are well characterised - the neural basis of meta
 -learning remains a source of debate.\n\nWe begin by taking a look back at
  the seminal 2018 paper from Botvinick et al. [1]\, which proposes meta le
 arning to occur within a ‘prefrontal network’ centred largely in the P
 FC. Specifically\, the authors postulate a two-part meta RL system that in
 cludes initial dopamine based learning by way of the classical cortico–b
 asal ganglia–thalamo–cortical loop to shape the recurrent connectivity
  of the PFC network\, followed by a second PFC-centred algorithm which is 
 dynamically tailored to the task at hand.\n\nIn the second part of the jou
 rnal club\, we will look at a recent paper from the Komiyama lab [2]\, in 
 which through 2-photon calcium imaging experiments in mice and computation
 al models\, the researchers argue that synaptic plasticity within orbitofr
 ontal cortex (OFC) is necessary for learning across sessions\, but not for
  within-session learning in already trained subjects.\n\n[1] Wang\, J. X.\
 , Kurth-Nelson\, Z.\, Kumaran\, D.\, Tirumala\, D.\, Soyer\, H.\, Leibo\, 
 J. Z.\, ...Botvinick\, M. (2018). Prefrontal cortex as a meta-reinforcemen
 t learning system. Nat. Neurosci.\, 21\, 860–868. doi: 10.1038/s41593-01
 8-0147-8\n[2] Hattori\, R.\, Hedrick\, N.G.\, Jain\, A. et al. Meta-reinfo
 rcement learning via orbitofrontal cortex. Nat Neurosci 26\, 2182–2191 (
 2023). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41593-023-01485-3 (\n
LOCATION:CBL Seminar Room\, Engineering Department\, 4th floor Baker build
 ing
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