3 May, Jackie SULLIVAN [WEBINAR]

3 May 2019
h 15-17 - Greenwhich Mean Time 
(check your local time here)​

Jackie SULLIVAN

(University of Western Ontario)

Optogenetics, Pluralism, and Progress

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Abstract

Optogenetic techniques are described as “revolutionary” for the unprecedented causal control they allow neuroscientists to exert over neural activity in awake-behaving animals. In this article, I demonstrate by means of a case study that optogenetic techniques will only illuminate causal links between the brain and behavior to the extent that their error characteristics are known and, further, that determining these error characteristics requires (1) comparison of optogenetic techniques with techniques having well-known error characteristics (methodological pluralism) and (2) consideration of the broader neural and behavioral context in which the targets of optogenetic interventions are situated (perspectival pluralism).