Home > Science Seminar >Spring 2013 >Carney
The Science Seminar Series: Friday march 29, 2013
GA Academy of Sciences Meeting
A Neuroscientist’s Quest to Reverse Engineer the Human Brain- Mapping the Human Brain Connectivity
Dr. Paul Richard Carney, M.D.
Wilder Professor, Pediatrics Dept., College of Medicine
University of Florida
**Please note this seminar is on Friday march 29, 2013 beginning at 3p in Bailey Science Auditorium
Time: 3:00 -4:00pm
Abstract
The connectome refers to the exquisitely interconnected network of neurons (nerve cells) in your brain. Like the genome, the effort to map the connectome and decipher the electrical signals that generate your thoughts, feelings, and behaviors has become possible through development of powerful new tools and technologies. For some time, neuroscientists have been able to infer loosely the main functions of certain brain regions by studying patients with epilepsy, head injuries, brain tumors, or by measuring levels of oxygen or glucose consumption in healthy people’s brains during particular activities. But all along it’s been rather clear that these inferences were overly simplistic. Now, new advances in computer science, math, and imaging, and data visualization are empowering us to study the human brain as an entire organ, and at a level of detail not previously imagined possible in a living person. Using a combination of non-invasive imaging technologies, including functional MRI, MEG and EEG, diffusion MRI, optical imaging, and optogenetics, mapping large brain systems can be divided into anatomically and functionally distinct areas, rather than mapping individual neurons. I will review these emerging technologies and show results for mapping the brain in animal models and humans.