A Population Doctrine in Neuroscience Workshop

A Population Doctrine in Neuroscience Workshop

October 25 @ 8:00 am - October 26 @ 5:00 pm EDT

We are pleased to announce an interdisciplinary 2-day workshop held at the Center for Philosophy of Science at the University of Pittsburgh. The workshop will focus on topics related to a shift in neuroscience from the investigation of single neurons to populations of neurons. The investigation of single neurons has been supported by the so-called neuron doctrine, which posits the neuron as the fundamental structural and functional unit of the nervous system. As the focus moves away from single neurons and toward populations of neurons, some have called for a new, population doctrine. But the conceptual and methodological commitments of a potential population doctrine, as well as its significance, remain underexplored.

The goal of the workshop is to arrive at an interdisciplinary perspective on the nature and significance of the population doctrine and its relation to what came before. In particular, we aim to bring neuroscientists, philosophers, and historians together to answer the following questions:

-What is the population doctrine? How is it related to the neuron doctrine?

-What are the conceptual, explanatory, ontological, and methodological commitments of the population doctrine? For example,

-Are population level measures and analyses simply providing a more compact representation of neural activity or are they providing unique insights that are not otherwise accessible?

-What are the explanatory advantages of population measures over single-unit measures?

-Does the form of explanation change or is the population doctrine just “more of the same”?

 Keynote Speakers:

• Rosa Cao (Stanford University)
• Rafael Yuste (Columbia University)

Conference Dates:

October 25th and 26th, 2025

Location:

Center for Philosophy of Science, University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, PA

Format:

In addition to the keynote lectures, the workshop will include 30-minute presentations (20 minutes + 10 Q&A) from contributed speakers and a roundtable panel discussion.