15-883 Fall 20013: Sample Midterm Questions

The midterm questions will be no harder than these:
  1. Discuss the differences between the spinocerebellum and cerebrocerebellum. Consider (a) communication with deep cerebellar nuclei, (b) sources of mossy fibers, (c) existence of somatotopic maps, (d) proposed role in production of movement.

  2. Describe the distinguishing properties of DG and CA3. What role is each region thought to play in memory formation?

  3. Consider an associative memory whose input layer has pattern sparseness alphai-1 and projects to an output layer with pattern sparseness alphai. Derive the formula for the probability that a synapse has been modified after n patterns have been stored. (Don't just write down the formula; explain where it comes from.)

  4. List the three types of inhibition Marr proposed for hippocampus and describe how each one worked.

  5. Explain the two types of information that place cells are thought to integrate, and where each type comes from.

  6. Several competing explanations for the existence of grid cells have been proposed. Describe two of them.

Dave Touretzky
Last modified: Wed Oct 9 02:15:00 EDT 2013