Wednesday, March 12, 2025
3/12/2025
ABSTRACT Our training program for Interactionist Cognitive Neuroscience (ICoN) seeks to provide student-focused, interdisciplinary training in computational cognitive neuroscience that integrates multiple levels of computation and analysis with data across e scales and species. Such integration is key to making transformative gains in understanding the human brain and mental health. Prior to launching the ICoN Training Program, we argued that fulfilling this promise requires making direct links between circuit-level computation, often only testable in animal models, and the emergent function of the human system (Badre, Frank and Moore, 2015 Neuron). Bridging these levels does not happen spontaneously but demands a systematic approach that requires a new generation of scientists who can take full advantage of computational theory and data at multiple levels from cellular to systems to cognitive. Traditional neuroscience training relies on an apprenticeship model that limits students to a single lab, and usually, a single level of inquiry. Cross-disciplinary training in this traditional model comes with considerable risk and places an unusual burden on the individual student to forge a path. Thus, we developed a specialized ICoN Training Program that facilitates the broad-based computational and interdisciplinary training necessary to equip neuroscientists to be next generation leaders in the ‘Interactionist’ approach. ICoN program elements are based on two central tenets: 1. Computation is key to translating between levels. Students must be rigorously quantitatively trained and versed in formal theory. They must be skilled in the languages, tools, and approaches of the computational sciences, and fluent in advanced analysis methods necessary for cross-level integration. 2. Next-generation scholars must have expertise at multiple levels. Students must be trained to integrate multiple methods and data sources from animal to human, molecule to mind. They must have the skills (and courage) to pursue ideas to their next most logical step, to be question-driven and not technique-limited. Students must be versed in multiple scientific literatures, cultures, and vocabularies. To achieve these tenets, the ICoN program provides a variety of training opportunities that are tailored to individual student goals through team advising. Building on the success of the initial funding period, program elements include: cross-level research experiences bridging domains such as human cognitive, system, and computational neuroscience; weekly ICoN group meetings, with intensive discussion on merits and challenges of Interactionist science; formal coursework; intensive computational and experimental workshops; and career development training opportunities. The cross-disciplinary training and collaborations ICoN provides will accelerate the pace of discovery in mental health research and ultimate translation to real world impact.
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