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Building and Interacting with Virtual Brain
Building and Interacting with Virtual Brain
The Virtual Brain (TVB, thevirtualbrain.org) is an international project that uses real neuroimaging data to construct a simulation of the human brain. Anatomical data setup the conduit for communication between different brain regions. The dynamics for each region are generated from a library of nonlinear models, and produce large-scale activity patterns that can be compared directly to empirical functional data, such EEG/MEG or functional MRI. The talk will present the core of the platform and its applications to understanding the structure-function interplay that forms the basis of cognitive architectures. TVB’s use of real data is also at the heart of a larger social neuroscience initiative, wherein small groups of people interact with TVB through wireless EEG headsets, modifying an immersive audiovisual environment that mimics a dream — My Virtual Dream. The goal is to make use of individual brain signals to augment the group experience through TVB. The two avenues of development for TVB will inform neurally-inspired computing architectures and the evolution of interactive devices that can use a person’s physiology to redesign their experience.
Speaker Info:
Randy McIntosh, PhD.
Professor, Department of Psychology, University of Toronto
Director, Rotman Research Institute, Baycrest Centre
Wearable tech to help focus, lose weight
Wearable tech to help focus, lose weight
Smartphone-connected bracelets and headbands help you use tech attached to your body to monitor what’s going on inside of it.
To Understand Depression, Understand Fun: Erika Forbes
To Understand Depression, Understand Fun: Erika Forbes
Erika Forbes, PhD, is Associate Professor of Psychiatry and Psychology at the University of Pittsburgh and director of the Affective Neuroscience and Developmental Psychopathology Lab. She completed her AB at Harvard University and her PhD at the University of Pittsburgh. She is a clinical and developmental psychologist by training, and her work examines the neuroscience of mental health in young people. Specifically, she uses techniques such as functional magnetic resonance imaging to investigate how unusual brain function in response to rewarding or pleasant stimuli is involved in the development of depression and substance use in adolescents.
Colin Camerer: Neuroscience, game theory, monkeys
Colin Camerer: Neuroscience, game theory, monkeys
When two people are trying to make a deal — whether they’re competing or cooperating — what’s really going on inside their brains? Behavioral economist Colin Camerer shows research that reveals just how little we’re able to predict what others are thinking. And he presents an unexpected study that shows chimpanzees might just be better at it than we are.
Colin Camerer is a leading behavioral economist who studies the psychological and neural bases of choice and strategic decision-making.
WHY YOU SHOULD LISTEN TO HIM?
Colin Camerer focuses on brain behavior during decision making, strategizing and market trading. He is the Robert Kirby Professor of Behavioral Finance and Economics at the California Institute of Technology. A child prodigy in his youth, Camerer received a B.A. in quantitative studies from Johns Hopkins when he was just 17 and a PhD in decision theory from the University of Chicago Graduate School of Business when he was 22. Camerer’s research departs from previous theory in that it does not assume the mind to be a rational and perfect system, but rather focuses on the limitations of everyday people when they play actual games, and seeks to predict how they will behave in situations that involve strategy. His studies focus on neurological findings from economic experiments in the lab (on humans — and monkeys!) Camerer is the author of Behavioral Game Theory.
David Anderson: Your brain is more than a bag of chemicals
David Anderson: Your brain is more than a bag of chemicals
Modern psychiatric drugs treat the chemistry of the whole brain, but neurobiologist David Anderson believes in a more nuanced view of how the brain functions. He illuminates new research that could lead to targeted psychiatric medications — that work better and avoid side effects. How’s he doing it? For a start, by making a bunch of fruit flies angry. (Filmed at TEDxCaltech.)
Through his lab at the California Institute of Technology, David Anderson seeks to find the neural underpinnings of emotions like fear, anxiety and anger.
WHY YOU SHOULD LISTEN TO HIM?
How is emotional behavior encoded in the brain? And what parts of the brain are affected by depression, ADHD and anxiety? This is what neurobiologist David Anderson researches in his lab at the California Institute for Technology by studying the brains of lab mice and fruit flies. By looking at how neural circuits give rise to emotions, Anderson hopes to advance a more nuanced view of psychiatric disorders — that they aren’t the result of a simple “chemical imbalance,” but of a chemical imbalance at a specific site that has a specific emotional consequences. By researching these cause-and-effect relationships, Anderson hopes to pave the way for the development of new treatments for psychiatric disorders that are far more targeted and have far fewer side effects.
Trained by two Nobel laureates, Gunter Blobel and Richard Axel, Anderson is also an investigator at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute.
“You are at a picnic and a wasp is circling. You swat it away, but it buzzes back again and again, more persistent each time. The wasp seems angry. Or is it? Can insects be ‘angry’? David J. Anderson believes that what we perceive as insect anger may share a foundation with human frustration or aggression. “ Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
Dr. David Rock on Science Behind Leadership
Dr. David Rock on Science Behind Leadership
It’s all in the brain. Dr. David Rock from NeuroLeadership Institute talks about why it’s important to understand how we think to improve our working culture.
Google Personal Growth Series: Mindsight: The New Science of Personal Transformation
Google Personal Growth Series: Mindsight: The New Science of Personal Transformation
This interactive talk will examine two major questions: What is the mind? and How can we create a healthy mind? We’ll examine the interactions among the mind, the brain, and human relationships and explore ways to create a healthy mind, an integrated brain, and mindful, empathic relationships. Here is one surprising finding: the vast majority (about 95%) of mental health practitioners around the globe, and even many scientists and philosophers focusing on the mind, do not have a definition of what the mind is! In this talk, well offer a working definition of the mind and practical implications for how to perceive and strengthen the mind itself—a learnable skill called mindsight. Then well build on this perspective to explore ways that the mind, the brain, and our relationships are influenced by digital information flow and also how they can be moved toward healthy functioning.
Presented by Daniel J. Siegel, M.D.
Andy Puddicombe: All it takes is 10 mindful minutes
Andy Puddicombe: All it takes is 10 mindful minutes
When is the last time you did absolutely nothing for 10 whole minutes? Not texting, talking or even thinking? Mindfulness expert Andy Puddicombe describes the transformative power of doing just that: Refreshing your mind for 10 minutes a day, simply by being mindful and experiencing the present moment. (No need for incense or sitting in uncomfortable positions.)
Mindfulness expert Andy Puddicombe wants to make meditation accessible to everybody: for a happier, healthier you.
WHY YOU SHOULD LISTEN TO HIM?
Andy Puddicombe wants you to take a break — not just from work, but from your own mind, which is so full of anxieties about the world and anxieties about its own anxieties. To help you do that, Puddicombe, a former Buddhist monk, co-founded Headspace, a project to make meditation more accessible to more people in their everyday lives. Puddicombe also writes prolifically for the Huffington Post and the Guardian, on the benefits of mindful thinking for healthy living.
Novel Memories Slow Our Perception of Time
Novel Memories Slow Our Perception of Time
Neuroscientist and bestselling author David Eagleman explains why time seems to go faster as we age, saying, “The way we estimate duration has a lot to do with how much memory we’ve laid down.”
