Prashant C. Raju

About

My research broadly focuses on understanding the dynamics of cortical circuits that subserve cognitive functions, by adopting problem-solving approaches from physics, mathematics, electrical engineering, and computer science into neuroscience research.

I am currently pursuing a Ph.D. in physics at the University of Arkansas, where I work with Woodrow Shew. I previously attended Columbia University for undergrad and I spent many years in San Francisco and Palo Alto working for various seed stage startups.

Research

Ongoing Work

1. Functional encoding of cognitive operations
2. Geometry of episodic memory and working memory communication

Publications

2024

2020

Conference Abstracts

2020

Interests

Academic

There are 10¹⁰ neurons in the human brain, with an average of 10⁴ synapses on each. Despite this extremely large and complex configuration, the brain is able to rapidly store and retrieve information by performing less then 100 computations in the order of microseconds, which is extraordinarily impressive when taken into account that nobody has been able to produce a polynomial time solution to the Traveling Salesperson Problem inspite of the best effort of some of the brightest minds. It's abilitiy to store large amounts of information and to be able to learn to piece together disparate sets of information under different contexts is something that the most sophisticated AI does not come close to being able to accomplish. Though significant progress has been made in learning how key elements of the brain work, the mechanics of its underlying operating system still remains unknown.

All of my research interests are guided by an Ahabian desire to learn how the brain's operating system works. In this pursuit, I am interested in learning about the biophysical properties of the brain at every possible level - from individual dendritic spines to long range networks - and to be able to bridge together experimental findings and to move into uncharted waters with theoretical proposals and accompanying computational frameworks. My hope is that the recent advances in AI research and that the easy access to powerful computing hardware will make simulating and testing such frameworks possible, and that they will ultimately advance the development of a unified theory of the brain's operating system.

Personal

I am a dog lover, and have never met a dog that I haven't loved. I am the proud father of 2 puppies, Biscuit and Chewbacca (Chewy), biological siblings from the same litter. Their mom was a boxer mix and their dad was an unknown. They were born on December 4, 2021 in Colcord, OK. Biscuit was adopted on March 5, 2022 and Chewy was adopted on June 18, 2022, both from Tailwaggers of Northwest Arkansas.

I have enjoyed art since I was young. My interest originally began out appreciation of the aesthetic and has evolved into a fascination with deciphering sentiment. Over the years, I have painted and I have drawn portraits with both oil and with charcoal. In recent years, my interest in analyzing expression in art has expanded to analyzing it in other domains, particularly in literature and in poetry. I have also recently began carpentry.

I am a huge car fanatic and I have an unwavering love for Porsche. I was fortunate to have once owned a 997 C2 cabriolet. One of my goals in life is to buy and fully restore a 1960's era 911.

Contact

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My thoughts

Coming soon...

My thoughts