What: Virtual lecture series on topics across machine learning in medicine, featuring extensive Q & A and panel discussions
Why: To reduce academia’s carbon footprint and accommodate the schedules of the world’s top scientists
Where: Broadcast to in-person conference rooms at Cornell University in Ithaca NY and Weill Cornell Medicine in New York, NY
Also open to remote attendees everywhere via Zoom
Bratislav Misic, PhD - Assistant Professor, Neurology and Neurosurgery, McGill University, Montreal, CA
When: November 15th, 9:45 - 11:00 am
NYC location: Belfer Building (413 E69 St), 302-D
Ithaca Location: Weill Hall, 224
Title: Signaling and transport in brain networks
Abstract: The complex network spanned by millions of axons and synaptic contacts acts as a conduit for both healthy brain function and for dysfunction. Collective signaling and communication among populations of neurons supports flexible behaviour and cognitive operations. Perturbations, such as stimulation-induced dynamic activity or the accumulation of pathogenic proteins, often spread from their source location via axonal projections. Here I will focus on how two fundamental types of dynamics - electrical signaling and molecular transport - can be modeled in brain networks.
Biography: Dr. Bratislav Misic leads the Network Neuroscience Lab. We investigate how cognitive operations and complex behaviour emerge from the connections and interactions among brain areas. The goal of this research is to quantify the effects of disease on brain structure and function. Our research program emphasizes representations and models that not only embody the topological organization of the brain, but also capture the complex multi-scale relationships that link brain network topology to dynamic biological processes, such as neural signalling and disease spread. Our research lies at the intersection of network science, dynamical systems and multivariate statistics, with a focus on complex data sets involving multiple neuroimaging modalities, including fMRI, DWI, MEG/EEG and PET.
Joaquin Goni, PhD - Assistant Professor, School of Industrial Engineering & Weldon School of Biomedical Engineering, Purdue University, West Lafayette, IN
When: December 6th, 9:45 - 11:00 am
NYC location: TBA
Ithaca Location: TBA
Title: TBA
Abstract: TBA
Biography: I am a Computational Neuroscientist who works in the emergent research area of Brain Connectomics. My current research in the CONNplexity Lab focuses on the application of Complex Systems approaches in Neuroscience and Cognitive Science, including frameworks such as graph theory, information theory or fractal theory. Projects include relating structural and functional connectivity within the human brain. My interest includes healthy and disease conditions, including neurodegenerative diseases. I also make contributions to theoretical foundations of Complex Systems.
Danielle Bassett, PhD - J Peter Skirkanich Professor, Department of Bioengineering, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA
When: December 12th, 3:15 - 4:30 pm
NYC location: TBA
Ithaca Location: TBA
Title: TBA
Abstract: TBA
Biography: Bassett's group studies biological, physical, and social systems by using and developing tools from network science and complex systems theory. Our broad goal is to isolate problems at the intersection of basic science, engineering, and clinical medicine that can be tackled using systems-level approaches. Recent examples include predicting the extent of learning from human brain networks, resolving the evolution of the neuronal synapse via genetic interaction networks, determining bulk material properties from mesoscale force networks, and isolating individual drivers of collective social behavior during evacuations. In these contexts, we seek to develop new mathematical methods for the principled characterization of temporally dynamic, spatially embedded, and multiscale networked systems, with the goal of predicting system behavior and designing perturbations to affect a specific outcome. A current focal interest of the group lies in network neuroscience. We develop analytic tools to probe the hard-wired pathways and transient communication patterns inside of the brain in an effort to identify organizational principles, to develop novel diagnostics of disease, and to design personalized therapeutics for rehabilitation and treatment of brain injury, neurological disease, and psychiatric disorders.
Konrad Kording, PhD - JProfessor, Department of Bioengineering and Neuroscience, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA
When: January 23rd, 3:15 - 4:30 pm
NYC location: TBA
Ithaca Location: TBA
Title: TBA
Abstract: TBA
Biography: Konrad Kording runs his lab at the University of Pennsylvania. Konrad is interested in the question of how the brain solves the credit assignment problem and similarly how we should assign credit in the real world (through causality). In extension of this main thrust he is interested in applications of causality in biomedical research. Konrad has trained as student at ETH Zurich with Peter Konig, as postdoc at UCL London with Daniel Wolpert and at MIT with Josh Tenenbaum. After a decade at Northwestern University he is now PIK professor at UPenn.