Normative approaches to neural coding and behavior

Abstract

These are a brief set of lectures notes for lectures given at the Les Houches Summer School in Theoretical Biological Physics in July 2023. In these notes, I provide an introduction to some of the theoretical frameworks that are used to understand how the brain makes sense of incoming signals from the environment to ultimately guide effective behavior. I then discuss how we can apply these frameworks to understand the structure and function of real brains.