To understand how our brain works, there is no getting around investigating how different brain regions are connected with each other by nerve fibres. In the most recent issue of Science, researchers of the Human Brain Project (HBP) review the current state of the field, provide insights on how the brain’s connectome is structured on different spatial scales – from the molecular and cellular to the macro level – and evaluate existing methods and future requirements for understanding the connectome’s complex organisation.
By analysing images obtained by functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) and by computational modelling, HBP researchers from Universitat Pompeu Fabra (Spain) and other institutions have found that measuring the turbulence in brain dynamics enables them to distinguish between different brain states far more precisely than other pre-existing techniques.
HBP researchers have trained a large-scale model of the primary visual cortex of the mouse to solve visual tasks in a highly robust way. The model provides the basis for a new generation of neural network models. Due to their versatility and energy-efficient processing, these models can contribute to advances in neuromorphic computing.
A new study by researchers of the Human Brain Project suggests that an alteration of the normal coordination between subcortical and cortical regions of the brain can be an important mechanism explaining neurological dysfunction after suffering a stroke.
On 25th October 2022, the 7th ever HBP Young Researcher’s Event took place in Zadar, Croatia. HBP and EBRAINS together with the University of Zagreb, School of Medicine and HIBALL invited the entire scientific community, in particular early career researchers, to join the event on-site and online. During this one-day free hybrid event, participants learned more about topics like big data analytics, human brain atlasing, and computational neuroscience in interactive plenaries and hands-on workshops.
Researchers of the Human Brain Project have applied methods and technologies that have originally been developed for the study of complex brain dynamics to study the spread of COVID-19, accurately predicting the timepoints at which new waves of infections started and the timepoints of their peaks and valleys. This epidemic model, one of the first to introduce psychological and socioeconomic factors into the equation, could be used to provide predictions for the spread of COVID-19 and other pandemic diseases in the future.
Researchers of the Human Brain Project have developed a new methodology to calculate the delay of signal propagations in brains of patients suffering from multiple sclerosis, a chronic inflammatory disease that affects more than 2 million people worldwide.
Aimed at researchers eager to exploit their research results, the Startups & Fundraising report introduces the possibilities of the entrepreneurship world.
This report, elaborated by the HBP Innovation team, originates from the SGA3 phase of the Human Brain Project, as a business intelligence work aiming to support decision-making processes on the exploitation of research results. In particular, the report is targeting specialized groups in the neurological, neurocomputing and neurotechnological areas, to facilitate a more profound understanding of brain diseases and the reaction of human brain in front of different types of stimulus.
“Target” and “distractor” neurons may shape how the brain handles distracting information
