UNIVERSITY OF HERTFORDSHIRE
             COMPUTER SCIENCE RESEARCH COLLOQUIUM

                            presents

     
	"Correlation as a substitute for causality:  how FMRI has 
    reinforced correlation-based story telling in neuroscience 
    with the cerebellum replacing 42 as the answer to everything 
         and what history tells us to do about it."
	

                    Prof. Jim Bower
              (South Oregon University)

                          8 October 2025
                         13:00 -14:00 
                          Room LB216

                  Everyone is Welcome to Attend
				  Refreshments will be provided
				  
				                               

Abstract:

According to Goggle’s AI overview, the function of the cerebellum now includes not only the traditional motor coordination, balance and posture, and motor learning, but also attention, memory and emotional regulation.  Based on recently published fMRI studies, the AI bott missed: sleep, stress, thirst, hyperactivity, psychosis, schizophrenia, autism, epilepsy, urinary tract function, mutism, language acquisition, and much more.  Summarizing these results, Guell and Schmahmann (2020) have stating that the cerebellum has now been shown to be “relevant to virtually all aspects of behavior in health and disease”.   While this statement may be consistent with the fMRI observations, it poses serious computational challenges given the cerebellum’s remarkably uniform neuronal structure.  After summarizing recent fMRI results, and briefly discussing how and to what extent attempts have been made to accommodate what is known about cerebellar structure, this talk will to go on to consider what the resolution of a conundrum involving the structure of the solar system in the 17th and 18th centuries suggests about how studies of the cerebellum and the nervous system in general should now proceed. 


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Hertfordshire Computer Science Research Colloquium
http://cs-colloq.cs.herts.ac.uk