Hadi Vafaii
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View article: Brain-like variational inference.
Brain-like variational inference. Open
Inference in both brains and machines can be formalized by optimizing a shared objective: maximizing the evidence lower bound (ELBO) in machine learning, or minimizing variational free energy in neuroscience ( ). While this equiva…
View article: Unveiling Secrets of Brain Function With Generative Modeling: Motion Perception in Primates & Cortical Network Organization in Mice
Unveiling Secrets of Brain Function With Generative Modeling: Motion Perception in Primates & Cortical Network Organization in Mice Open
This Dissertation is comprised of two main projects, addressing questions in neuroscience through applications of generative modeling. Project #1 (Chapter 4) explores how neurons encode features of the external world. I combine Helmholtz's…
View article: Brain-like Variational Inference
Brain-like Variational Inference Open
Inference in both brains and machines can be formalized by optimizing a shared objective: maximizing the evidence lower bound (ELBO) in machine learning, or minimizing variational free energy (F) in neuroscience (ELBO = -F). While this equ…
View article: Multimodal measures of spontaneous brain activity reveal both common and divergent patterns of cortical functional organization
Multimodal measures of spontaneous brain activity reveal both common and divergent patterns of cortical functional organization Open
View article: Poisson Variational Autoencoder
Poisson Variational Autoencoder Open
Variational autoencoders (VAEs) employ Bayesian inference to interpret sensory inputs, mirroring processes that occur in primate vision across both ventral (Higgins et al., 2021) and dorsal (Vafaii et al., 2023) pathways. Despite their suc…
View article: Hierarchical VAEs provide a normative account of motion processing in the primate brain
Hierarchical VAEs provide a normative account of motion processing in the primate brain Open
The relationship between perception and inference, as postulated by Helmholtz in the 19th century, is paralleled in modern machine learning by generative models like Variational Autoencoders (VAEs) and their hierarchical variants. Here, we…
View article: Multimodal measures of spontaneous brain activity reveal both common and divergent patterns of cortical functional organization
Multimodal measures of spontaneous brain activity reveal both common and divergent patterns of cortical functional organization Open
Large-scale functional networks have been characterized in both rodent and human brains, typically by analyzing fMRI-BOLD signals. However, the relationship between fMRI-BOLD and underlying neural activity is complex and incompletely under…
View article: Multimodal measures of spontaneous brain activity reveals both common and divergent patterns of cortical functional organization
Multimodal measures of spontaneous brain activity reveals both common and divergent patterns of cortical functional organization Open
Work in humans and animals shows that the brain can be decomposed into large-scale functional networks. Whereas most studies, especially in humans, use the blood-oxygenation-level-dependent (BOLD) signal, the relationship between BOLD and …