The Mind, Brain and Behavior Research Center (CIMCYC) announces the relaunch of the CIMCYC Sessions, with the first meeting of the season taking place next Thursday, February 12, 2026.
Following the format of previous editions, the gathering will be structured around a collective discussion of a proposed scientific article. Attendees are encouraged to arrive with ideas, questions or prior reflections to share. To facilitate the exchange of ideas during the session, the organizers are providing the following resources (developed using ChatGPT and NotebookLM) for those who wish to attend:
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Paper: Kanwisher, N., Khosla, M. and Dobs, K. (2023). Using artificial neural networks to ask ‘why’ questions of minds and brains, Trends in Neurosciences, 46(3), pp. 240–254. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tins.2022.12.008
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Podcast: bit.ly/4bPicrV
Kickstarting questions:
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If cognitive phenomena can be replicated in ANNs simply by optimizing them for specific real-world tasks, what does this reveal about the origins of our own cognitive traits? Can we distinguish between characteristics that are "pre-wired" through evolutionary selection and those that emerge during development?
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Can ANNs help answer the "why of the why" question? Does the human brain look the way it does because it is the most computationally efficient solution to environmental challenges, or could we have evolved into a radically different but equally successful biological organization?
*This session will be in English and fully online.
*Please reach out to @email before the meeting in case you need confirmation for your attendance.
Date: Thursday, February 12, 2026
Join us online!: meet.google.com/sgz-quvr-rma
Time: 11.00 am