Mikail Khona

A morphing map model for place field organization in large environments

This paper introduces a morphing map algorithm to model place field organization in bats, showing shared structure between neural and model-generated maps using hyperbolic geometry.

Self-organized emergence of modularity, hierarchy, and mirror reversals from competitive synaptic growth in a developmental model of the visual pathway

This paper demonstrates that a simple synaptic growth rule generates modular, hierarchical, and topographically organized visual pathways in a developmental model.

No Free Lunch from Deep Learning in Neuroscience: A Case Study through Models of the Entorhinal-Hippocampal Circuit

This paper shows that deep learning models of grid cells in the entorhinal-hippocampal circuit do not reliably capture fundamental neural mechanisms and are influenced by non-fundamental implementation choices.

Emergence of robust global modules from local interactions and smooth gradients

This paper introduces peak selection, a process that explains how local interactions and smooth gradients can lead to robust global modular organization in biological systems.

Reverse-engineering Recurrent Neural Network solutions to a hierarchical inference task for mice

This paper studies how RNNs solve a hierarchical inference task with two latent variables and disparate timescales, finding they learn behavior similar to Bayesian baselines and develop interpretable models through knowledge distillation.