[PDE] Daniele Avitabile: Uncertainty Quantification for Neurobiological Networks

25 January 2024 16:00 till 17:00 - Location: EEMCS Timmanzaal (36.LB.01.170) | Add to my calendar

This talk presents a framework for forward uncertainty quantification problems in spatially-extended neurobiological networks. We will consider networks in which the cortex is represented as a continuum domain, and local neuronal activity evolves according to an integro-differential equation, collecting inputs nonlocally, from the whole cortex. These models are sometimes referred to as neural field equations.

Large-scale brain simulations of such models are currently performed heuristically, and the numerical analysis of these problems is largely unexplored. In the first part of the talk I will summarise recent developments for the rigorous numerical analysis of projection schemes [1] for deterministic neural fields, which sets the foundation for developing Finite-Element and Spectral schemes for large-scale problems.

The second part of the talk will discuss the case of networks in the presence of uncertainties modelled with random data, in particular: random synaptic connections, external stimuli, neuronal firing rates, and initial conditions. Such problems give rise to random solutions, whose mean, variance, or other quantities of interest have to be estimated using numerical simulations. This so-called forward uncertainty quantification problem is challenging because it couples spatially nonlocal, nonlinear problems to large-dimensional random data.

I will present a family of schemes that couple a spatial projector for the spatial discretisation, to stochastic collocation for the random data. We will analyse the time- dependent problem with random data and the schemes from a functional analytic viewpoint, and show that the proposed methods can achieve spectral accuracy, provided the random data is sufficiently regular. We will showcase the schemes using several examples.

Acknowledgements This talk presents joint work with Francesca Cavallini (VU Amsterdam), Svetlana Dubinkina (VU Amsterdam), and Gabriel Lord (Radboud University).

[1] Avitabile D. (2023). Projection Methods for Neural Field Equations. https://www.danieleavitabile.com/projection-methods-for-neural-field-equations/