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Computational Neuroethology: A Call to Action
Open accessAbstract
The brain is worthy of study because it is in charge of behavior. A flurry of recent technical advances in measuring and quantifying naturalistic behaviors provide an important opportunity for advancing brain science. However, the problem of understanding unrestrained behavior in the context of neural recordings and manipulations remains unsolved, and developing approaches to addressing this challenge is critical. Here we discuss considerations in computational neuroethology-the science of quantifying naturalistic behaviors for understanding the brain-and propose strategies to evaluate progress. We point to open questions that require resolution and call upon the broader systems neuroscience community to further develop and leverage measures of naturalistic, unrestrained behavior, which will enable us to more effectively probe the richness and complexity of the brain.
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“Neuroscience studies in particular have embraced novel tools for motion tracking, pose estimation (Fig. 1d, e), and behavioral classification (e.g., ref. 141).”
From Perspectives in machine learning for wildlife conservation (2022) · cites this paper as [141]
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Metadata
- Authors
- Datta, S. R., Anderson, D. J., Branson, K., Perona, P., & Leifer, A.
- Affiliations
- Harvard University (US)
- California Institute of Technology (US)
- Howard Hughes Medical Institute (US)
- Princeton University (US)
- Corresponding author
- Datta, Sandeep Robert
- Leifer, Andrew
- Venue
- Neuron
- Publisher
- Elsevier BV
- Published
- 2019-10
- Volume
- 104
- Issue
- 1
- Pages
- 11-24
- ISSN
- 0896-6273 (ISSN-L)
- PMC
- PMC6981239
- OpenAlex
- W2980030724
- Cited by
- 453
- References
- 148
- Citations by year
- 2026: 61 · 2025: 71 · 2024: 73 · 2023: 66 · 2022: 68 · 2021: 65 · 2020: 46 · 2019: 3
- FWCI
- 5.84
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- bronze
- doi.org
- Licence
- Locations
- Neuron (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- PubMed Central (acceptedVersion)
- CaltechAUTHORS (California Institute of Technology) (submittedVersion)
- Funders
- Simons Foundation
- National Institutes of Health (U24NS109520, U19NS112953, RO1MH112593, U19NS108179, RO1DC016222)
- National Science Foundation (1845137, PHY-1734030)
- Topics
- Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Cognitive Neuroscience › Memory and Neural Mechanisms
- Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Cognitive Neuroscience › Neural dynamics and brain function
- Social Sciences › Education › Undergraduate Neuroscience Education and Research
- Keywords
- naturalistic behavior, behavior quantification, neural recording, neural manipulation, systems neuroscience
- MeSH terms
- Machine Learning, Animals, Behavior, Animal, Brain, Ethology, Neurosciences, Electrophysiological Phenomena
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