On 5-13 June 2023, DANDRITE Group Leader Sadegh Nabavi takes the lead on a new edition of the course ‘Principles of Neural Organization’ in collaboration with the Graduate School of Health at Aarhus University.

Based on experience from the course in 2022, Sadegh Nabavi has revised the course plan and is now ready to present a new edition. This year the course will run for 9 full days, consist of a variation of lectures and lab demonstrations and adding a completely new topic "Extensions of principles of neural design into the realms of human health”, amounting to 5 ECTS points.

The course is interested in the following question: How can the brain be far smarter than a supercomputer yet consumes 100,000-fold less space and energy? Both brain and computer obey mathematical and physical laws and both deal with receiving, sending, processing, storing, and retrieving information. The short answer is that the brain employs a hybrid architecture of superior design. The long answer is this course, which explains the sources of such computational efficiency.

The course will discuss such a fundamental topic as neural design with far reaching implication, from health to building computers and artificial intelligence that are powerful, yet consume little energy (a substantial reduction in CO₂ footprint).

Among the instructors are the two authors of the book ‘Principles of Neural Design’ which the course is based on, Drs. Peter Sterling and Simon Laughlin. They will be joining to teach parts of the course. This gives the students the unique opportunity to interact with the two renown scientists outside the teaching hours and discuss their own works. In addition, the course will be taught by local researchers from Aarhus University, Nathalie Van Den Berge, Caroline Cristiano Real Gregório, Andrea Moreno, Noemie Mermet-Joret and the head of the course, Sadegh Nabavi.

Participation in the course is without cost for PhD students enrolled at partner universities of the Nordoc collaboration, Research Year students and Research Honours Programme students from Aarhus University and PhD students from other institutions in the open market agreement for PhD courses.

If you know someone who is interested in joining the course, please share with them this link, for more information about the course and how to apply. The deadline to apply is 29 May 2023.