The brain is an extraordinarily complex biological system that underlies our behavior and mental life. With the tremendous advances in experimental Neurobiology, theory and computer models have become increasingly important for data analysis, hypothesis testing, and understanding functions of neural circuits endowed with many feedback mechanisms on multiple spatiotemporal scales.
This has led to the emergence of Computational Neuroscience, which has attracted intellectual minds from diverse disciplines such as Physics, Mathematics and Engineering. Here, I will present a broad introduction to this relatively new field: its development, current state and grand challenges. I will provide examples to illustrate how models can give rise to new fundamental concepts in Neuroscience.
Finally, I will discuss why Computational Neuroscience should be a major cutting-edge field in China, and what may be its impacts on other areas such as Information Technology.
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