BEGIN:VCALENDAR
VERSION:2.0
PRODID:icalendar-ruby
CALSCALE:GREGORIAN
X-WR-CALNAME:Adam Eisen Thesis Defense: Stability and Control: Signatures o
 f the Conscious Brain
X-WR-TIMEZONE:Eastern Time (US & Canada)
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTAMP:20260719T160559Z
UID:tag:localist.com\,2008:EventInstance_53046357593169
DTSTART:20260608T160000Z
DTEND:20260608T170000Z
DESCRIPTION:Title: Stability and Control: Signatures of the Conscious Brain
  Abstract: The brain is composed of interconnected cortical areas that dyn
 amically coordinate to support conscious functioning. Consciousness is rel
 iably disrupted by general anesthetics\, providing a means through which t
 he signatures of consciousness can be identified by contrasting across sta
 tes. We leveraged dynamical systems theory to explore changes in neural dy
 namics between consciousness and anesthetic-induced unconsciousness. We fo
 cused on two fundamental dynamical systems properties: dynamic stability\,
  the robustness of dynamics to perturbation\, and control\, how inputs can
  be coordinated with system dynamics to steer behavior. To evaluate these 
 phenomena\, we developed and applied two complementary methodologies. Firs
 t\, Delayed Linear Analysis for Stability Estimation (DeLASE) infers dynam
 ic stability from delay-embedded neural recordings. We applied DeLASE to l
 ocal field potentials (LFPs) recorded from non-human primates during propo
 fol infusion and found that propofol anesthesia destabilized cortical dyna
 mics relative to the awake state. This destabilization generalized to reco
 rdings under anesthetics with distinct molecular mechanisms (ketamine and 
 dexmedetomidine)\, suggesting a shared dynamical signature of anesthetic-i
 nduced unconsciousness. Second\, we constructed JacobianODE\, a deep learn
 ing framework that estimates the time-varying Jacobian of nonlinear dynami
 cs from data\, and used it to characterize how subsystems within a complex
  network control one another. We applied this control-theoretic analysis t
 o the same multi-area cortical recordings during propofol anesthesia. We f
 ound a broad disruption of intracortical control\, both in terms of how ea
 sily brain areas could drive each other toward novel states\, and how well
  they could control each other to produce reliable dynamics. Together\, th
 ese contributions offer rigorous\, data-driven tools for probing stability
  and control in neural dynamics. More broadly\, they frame anesthetic-indu
 ced unconsciousness as a joint breakdown of the stability and directional 
 control required for consciousness. Zoom link: https://mit.zoom.us/j/95355
 449682
GEO:42.362302;-71.091766
LOCATION:Building 46\, Singleton Auditorium 46-3002
SUMMARY:Adam Eisen Thesis Defense: Stability and Control: Signatures of the
  Conscious Brain
URL;VALUE=URI:https://calendar.mit.edu/event/adam-eisen-thesis-defense-stab
 ility-and-control-signatures-of-the-conscious-brain
CATEGORIES:Thesis defense
END:VEVENT
END:VCALENDAR