The connected brain
Dr. Bratislav Misic - McGill University
Feb. 21, 2020, 2:30 p.m. - Feb. 21, 2020, 3:30 p.m.
Burnside Hall 1B39
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.
Bio: Bratislav Misic leads the Network Neuroscience Lab and investigates 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. His 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. Misic's 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.
