CDS 101 Seminar

Control theory approaches to biological sensors

Michael Dickinson
Caltech Bioengineering

Friday, 8 November 2002
2 pm, 102 Steele

The role of a sensory system is to translate energy within the external world into the neural code used by the animal's brain. Thus, sensory cells represent basic input/ouput functions, and may be studied using the formalism of control theory. This lecture will introduce the basic methods used by biologists to characterize sensory systems from an
engineering perspective an approach that was pioneered in part by research at Caltech. The lecture will cover the methods by which physiologists decompose sensory systems into linear cascades of transfer functions, and
how such methods allow us 'break' the information code used by nervous systems.

Copy of presentation [pdf]


This seminar is being presented as part of CDS 101, Principles of Feedback and Control. If you would like to be added to the mailing list to receive future CDS 101 seminar announcements, you can subscribe to the cds101-announce mailing list.