BBB seminar: Jeanette Hellgren Kotaleski

Jeanette Hellgren Kotaleski
Department of Computational Biology, School of Computer Science and Communication, KTH Royal Institute of Technology, Stockholm, Sweden

To understand the inner workings of the brain, it is necessary to integrate data from the molecular level up to the systems level. Here computational modeling provides an important tool. Insights gained through modeling and simulations will be exemplified through the research going on in Stockholm with regard to quantitative modeling of the basal ganglia and how they control motor behavior. Some insights resulting from computational modeling at the subcellular-, single cell- and neural network levels will be reviewed, and it will be demonstrated how modeling may help when extrapolating from experiments to in vivo-like conditions in the search for the mechanisms involved in basal ganglia-dependent learning and decision making.

Finally, a short summary of the ongoing work in the Human Brain Project (HBP), funded through the EU Future and Emerging Technologies (FET) Flagship Program, will be provided. The core goal of HBP is to build a completely new ICT infrastructure for neuroscience, and for brain-related research in medicine and computing, catalyzing a global collaborative effort to understand the human brain and its diseases and ultimately to emulate its computational capabilities.
 

Chairperson: Rune Kleppe, Department of Biomedicine