Brain Matters

This episode featured the following researchers:

• Huifang Wang (Aix Marseille Université)
• Ramesh Upreti (Oslo University Hospital)
• Bertrand Thirion (Researcher at Inria)
• Daniel Irabien Peniche (Tallinn University)

The episode was moderated by Ira Hebold Haraldsen from Oslo University Hospital.

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This episode featured the following researchers:

• Timo Dickscheid (Forschungszentrum Jülich)
• Tim Salditt (Georg-August-Universität Göttingen)
• Katie Borner (Indiana University)
• Christian Büchel (Universitätsklinikum Hamburg-Eppendorf)

The session was moderated by Prof. Dr. med. Katrin Amunts, Scientific Director of the Human Brain Project.

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This episode featured the following HBP researchers:

• Birgit Kriener (Center for Molecular Medicine Norway)
• Sacha van Albada (University of Cologne, Forschungszentrum Jülich)
• Mikael Djurfeld (KTH Royal Institute of Technology)
• Johanna Senk (Forschungszentrum Jülich)

The session was moderated by Hans Ekkehard Plesser from Norwegian University of Life Sciences.

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This episode featured the following HBP researchers:

• Rajanikant Panda (University of Liege)
• Olivia Gosseries (University of Liege)

The session was moderated by Gorka Zamora-López from Pompeu Fabra University.

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The episode featured the following HBP researchers:

• Jean-François Mangin (Director of the Baobab research unit in Neurospin, CEA)
• Sebastian Billaudelle (University of Heidelberg)
• Giulia Rossetti (Forschungszentrum Jülich)

The session was moderated by Rebecca Wade from the Heidelberg Institute for Theoretical Studies.

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This episode featured the following HBP researchers:

• Heidi Kleven who is a PhD student at the University of Oslo with a research focus on developing and expanding rat and mouse brain atlases. She presented her ongoing work on brain atlases, focusing on the Waxholm Space atlas of the Sprague Dawley rat brain. 
• Maja Puchades from the University of Oslo presented an overview of EBRAINS tools for analyses of Rodent brain images. A pipeline consisting of several tools allows users to register their images to a reference atlas and perform quantitative analysis in an atlas context. Both standalone and online versions of the tools are now available through the EBRAINS infrastructure.
• Ingvild Bjerke from the University of Oslo is a postdoctoral researcher. Her research focuses on mapping cellular parameters in the rodent brain, using EBRAINS atlases and tools to perform brain-wide analyses. She presented her published research mapping calbindin- and parvalbumin-positive cells in the rat and mouse brain. 

The session was moderated by Trygve Leergaard who is a professor of Anatomy at the Institute of Basic Medical Sciences, University of Oslo. His research has been focused on resolving fundamental architectonical principles underlying brain map transformations in major sensorimotor projection systems connecting the cerebral cortex with several brain stem nuclei.

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This episode featured the following HBP researchers:

• Georg Northoff (The Royal's Institute of Mental Health Research) who presented 'Temporal imprecision in EEG'
• Anne Marie Wolff (University of Ottawa) who presented 'Temporal imprecision and prediction'
• Maria Karanikolaou (National Technical University of Athens) who presented 'Temporal imprecision and experience'

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This episode featured the following researchers in the Human Brain Project:

• Leon Stefanovski (Charité Berlin) who presented 'Brain simulation to improve classification in Alzheimer’s dementia and in silico drug testing'
• Jil Mona Meier (Charité Berlin) who presented 'In silico deep brain stimulation to improve patient outcomes in Parkinson’s dementia'
• Michael Schirner (Charité Berlin) who presented 'Multiscale brain network modeling to infer principles of cognitive brain function'

The session was moderated by Petra Ritter, Head of the Brain Simulation Section at Charité Berlin.

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This episode featured the following researchers in the Human Brain Project:

• Borana Dollomaja (Aix-Marseille University) presented her poster 'Virtual Epileptic Patient: From science to clinical trial'. The virtual epileptic patient is a brain modeling approach which combines mathematical models of seizure dynamics, patient brain imaging data and model fitting techniques to estimate the epileptogenic zone of the patient’s brain and help in the surgical prognosis of the patient.
• Pierpaolo Sorrentino (Aix-Marseille University) presented his poster 'On the topochronic map of the human brain dynamics'. Drawing from techniques adapted from statistical mechanics, this presentation introduces a new in vivo approach for measuring functional delays across the whole brain using magneto/electroencephalography and integrating them with the structural bundles.
• Giovanni Rabuffo (Aix-Marseille University) presented his poster 'Neuronal Cascades shape whole-brain functional dynamics at rest'. His team has uncovered a new phenomenon, neuronal cascades, and demonstrates their role in driving the switching behavior of functional connectivity states.

The session was moderated by Egidio D'Angelo, who is Full Professor of Physiology at the Dept. of  Brain and Behavioral Sciences of the University of Pavia.

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This webinar featured young researchers in the Human Brain Project: 

• Robin Gutzen (Forschungszentrum Jülich) presented his poster from SfN 2021. The abstract reads: "Wave-like activity in the brain can be found in various recordings across measurement techniques and experiments. To coherently understand, compare, and build on these heterogeneous findings we need analysis pipelines that are adaptable and reusable, as presented in this use-case."
• Alessandra Camassa (IDIBAPS) presented "Ongoing neural interactions under unconscious brain states." The emerging rhythm characteristic of unconscious brain states is known as Slow Wave Activity. To better understand the neural mechanisms and dynamical principles that underlie such activity, Alessandra and her team studied the network's synchronization dynamics at multiple scales.
• Antonio Pazienti (Istituto Superiore di Sanità) presented "Emerging slow waves in premotor cortex during task performance", showing how Antonio and his colleagues found signs of sleep in the neural activity during quiet periods within a task execution, and what this activity tells about criticality in the brain.

The session was moderated by Jennifer Goldman (European Institute for Theoretical Neuroscience).

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This webinar featured young researchers in the Human Brain Project: 

• Enny Van Beest (Netherlands Institute for Neuroscience) presented her poster 'The direct and indirect pathway modulate dorsal cortical activity and future perceptual decisions'
• Julien Fiorilli (University of Amsterdam) presented his poster 'Neural correlates of multisensory object sampling and associated choice outcome: Comparison of visual and somatosensory cortices, perirhinal cortex and hippocampus'

The session was moderated Prof. Dr. Cyriel Pennartz, head of the Department of Cognitive and Systems Neuroscience at the University of Amsterdam, the Netherlands.

This webinar featured Human Brain Project researchers who were selected to present posters at the Neuroscience 2021 virtual conference organized by the Society for Neuroscience (SfN)!

• Tao Yao (KU Leuven) is a postdoctoral researcher working on high cognitive function.
• Eline Mergan (KU Leuven) is a doctoral student whose work explores face perception in the prefrontal cortex of macaque monkeys.
• Jerome Herpers (KU Leuven) studies the effects of artificial stimulation of the ventral tegmental area (VTA) on visual plasticity and behaviour.
• Xiaolian Li (KU Leuven) is a PhD student of neuroscience whose research focuses on the study of the brain, particularly using high-resolution fMRI for high cognitive functions.

The session was moderated by Mavi-Sanchez Vives, MD PhD, ICREA Research Professor and leader of Systems Neuroscience at the Institute of Biomedical Research August Pi Sunyer in Barcelona, Spain.

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In the fifth edition of the Brain Matters Webinar we turned our attention from scientific results to scientific activity underway in the final phase of the Human Brain Project. In the Virtual Big Brain project teams at Forschungszentrum Jülich in Germany and Aix-Marseille University are working together to build a massively scaled up version of The Virtual Brain (TVB) a tool which simulates the whole human brain using mean field models.

The webinar featured the following speakers:

• Viktor Jirsa (Aix-Marseille University)
• Timo Dickscheid (Forschungszentrum Jülich) 
• Marmaduke Woodman (Aix-Marseille University)
• Sandra Diaz Pier (Forschungszentrum Jülich)

The session was moderated by Katrina Sichel.

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Brain Simulation Science and Technology: Looking Forward explored simulation science in the Human Brain Project in three specific brain areas:

• Michele Migliore (CNR) discussed the hippocampus.
• Eduardo Ros (University of Granada) addressed the cerebellum.
• Jeanette Hellgren Kotaleski (KTH) presented the basal ganglia.

The session was moderated by Katrina Sichel.

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• Steve Furber (University of Manchester), who has built the largest neuromorphic super-computer in the world in Manchester, introduced the origins of bio-inspired computing, which go back a lot longer than you might expect.
• Rainer Goebel (Maastricht University) talked about the work being done in the Human Brain Project’s "Adaptive networks for cognitive architectures:
• from advanced learning to neurorobotics and neuromorphic applications" Work Package.
• Christopher Summerfield (Oxford University), who works with the Deep Mind team in Google, talked about how insights from brain research are actively incorporated into efforts to build better artificial intelligence.

The session was moderated by Katrina Sichel.

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• Mavi Sanchez-Vives (IDIBAPS) talked about the scientific work package she leads “Brain Networks Underlying Cognitition and Consciousness” and the work underway to develop a “general model of brain states.”
• Marcello Massimini (University of Milan) spoke about how to better determine whether non-responsive or minimally-responsive patients are conscious.
• Pieter Roelfsema (Netherlands Institute for Neuroscience) addressed the question How can we calibrate computer brain interfaces to ensure electrical stimuli inputs reach the level of attention?

The session was moderated by Katrina Sichel.

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This webinar explained how the Human Brain Project and EBRAINS are ushering in a new era in brain research by:

• Moving the field of neuroscience towards the world of connectivity
• Gaining a better understanding of the human multiscale connectome
• Providing brain researchers with high quality models, data sets, and robust tools through EBRAINS

It featured the following speakers:

• Katrin Amunts (FZ Jülich & University of Düsseldorf)
• Simon Eickhoff (FZ Jülich)
• Viktor Jirsa (Aix-Marseille Université)

The session was moderated by Katrina Sichel.

Watch the recording here.