CNS Seminar

Title: The thalamus in cognitive control and flexibility

Abstract: The thalamus is traditionally thought to operate as a 'relay' to or across cortical areas, with no clear ideas of what computations the thalamus itself may perform. In this presentation, I will very quickly go over some of the published data showing how the mediodorsal thalamus (MD) does more than relay task-relevant variables to the prefrontal cortex (PFC). Next, I will show some recent unpublished data suggestive of bona fide thalamic computations involving the adjustment of cortical weights based on cortical dimensionality reduction that is likely implemented by a special type of cortico-thalamo-cortical architecture.