The study led by researchers at Dalhousie University uses Riddell SpeedFlex helmets equipped with sensors to measure head impacts and detect concussions. (CBC - image credit)
Neuroscience researchers atDalhousie Universityare investigating how head impacts lead to injuriesin football players.
One of their preliminary findings is that it isn't the intensity of a single hit that can lead to concussions or trauma-like symptoms, it's the accumulation of small hits suffered during practice or games, saidAlon Friedman, a co-author ontheir recently published study.
"It's not necessary that we have to treat a concussion itself," he said. "The concussion is an outcome of many, many small injuries that you had throughout the season and you didn't even feel about them."
Their findings lend support to the idea that head impacts can cause dysfunction in the blood-brain barrier, which helps shield the brain from salts, proteins and toxins in the blood. When it's impacted, leakage can occur, causing changes in the brain function and structure, which can result in cognitive decline or emotional and movement problems.
Friedman said the effects of the leakage dependon what part of a player's head is impacted, sincethe brain hasvarious networksof nerve cells that control things like behaviour, mood and movement.
Alon Friedman is a professor of neuroscience at Dalhousie University. (Submitted by Alon Friedman)
One of Friedman's co-authors isCasey Jones,a former Dalhousie Tiger football player and coach, and the current resident physician in the university's department of emergency medicine.
"My goals as a past athlete and coach and someone who's been really involved with football my whole life is, 'how can we make our game safer?'" Jones said. "What are aspects of our game that we can, you know, reduce impacts to the head?"
Previous research on deceased athletes with a history of chronic traumatic encephalopathy, a brain disorder caused by repeated head trauma, has found evidence of changes inthe blood-brain barrier, Jones said.
Story continues
"Not everyone after a concussion will have problems in the future, actually most people, most individuals after concussion will heal and will be fine," Friedman said.
But in some cases, people are susceptible mild head injuries, he said,and it's important to identify those who are at risk and who coulddevelop complications in the future, Friedman said.
Their study, which was led by researchers at Dalhousie andpublished in Januaryin the Clinical Journal of Sport Medicine, involved 60 football players.Eight had suffereda clinically diagnosed concussion, and five of them underwent an assessmentto gage leakage in the blood-brain barrier.
High-tech helmets
Theyused Riddell SpeedFlex helmets that are equipped with sensors to measure head impacts and detect concussions.
One of the benefits of using thehelmets, Jones said, is that they can continue to provide data days after an impact, showing any lingering effects.
Friedman said a previous study on traumatic brain injuries, conducted in collaboration with the University of Pennsylvania, found that 60 per cent of cases with blood-brain-barrier dysfunction had healed three months later. The remaining cases had not and were likely to worsen, he said.
Although the current study is a pilot project, Jones is optimistic that their work willcontinue, although access to funding, technology and players are challenges.
Friedman said their findings suggest it's important to identify players who are susceptible to mild head injuries and risk developing complications in future.
"If we can identify them early, then we can treat them before they develop the severe complications."
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Prof. Haim Sompolinsky of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem is awarded the Brain Prize for 2024, the largest and most prestigious international prize for brain research. The prize is awarded annually by the Lundbeck Foundation of Denmark.
Sompolinsky, who is also affiliated with Harvard University, is a physicist and pioneer in the field of theoretical and computational neuroscience, particularly in the study of neural circuit dynamics in the brain. His research has significantly contributed to understanding how neural circuits process and encode information, map the external world and participate in learning and memory.
Sompolinsky shares the annual prize totaling 1.3 million euros with Prof. Larry Abbott of Columbia University and Prof. Terrence Sejnowski of the Salk Institute, who are also widely recognized for their groundbreaking work in computational and theoretical neuroscience, which applies physics, mathematics, and statistics as tools for studying the brain and how it functions.
Its a very satisfactory and personal honor for me to receive this award. More so, it is a fantastic recognition of the important contribution of radical computational science at the heart of brain science. This would not have been the case decades ago, he tells The Times of Israel.
His Royal Highness King Frederik of Denmark, will present the Brain Prize medals to the winners at a ceremony in Copenhagen on May 30.
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Hebrew University's Haim Sompolinsky awarded prestigious Brain Prize for pioneering neuroscience research - The Times of Israel
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Haim Sompolinsky, professor in residence in molecular and cellullar biology and physics at Harvard.
Credit: Anthony Tulliani for the Kempner Institute at Harvard
Haim Sompolinsky, Professor in Residence in Harvards Department of Molecular and Cellular Biology and Department of Physics, has received theBrain Prizefor his pioneering contributions to computational and theoretical neuroscience.
Considered the worlds most prestigious prize for neuroscience research, the Brain Prize 2024 is shared by Sompolinsky, Larry Abbott of Columbia University, and Terrence Sejnowski of the Salk Institute. All three scientists have helped uncover key principles governing the brains structure, function, and the emergence of cognition and behavior, according to the Lundbeck Foundation in Denmark, which awards the annual recognition.
Richard Morris, chair of the Brain Prize Selection Committee, explained the reasoning behind this years awardees.
It is inconceivable to imagine modern brain sciences without the concomitant development of computational and theoretical neuroscience, Morris said. The three scientists have applied novel and sophisticated approaches from physics, mathematics, and statistics to study the brain. They have developed vital tools for the analysis of highly complex datasets acquired by modern-day experimental neuroscientists.
Director of the Swartz Program in Theoretical Neuroscience at Harvards Center for Brain Science and Associate Faculty in the Kempner Institute for the Study of Natural and Artificial Intelligence, Sompolinsky has spent his career developing new theoretical approaches to computational neuroscience. His research has helped establish a deeper understanding of neural processes through rigorous conceptual frameworks found in physics.
Among his most important foundational work is the establishment and theoretical understanding of models of neuronal circuit function, including circuits for long-term memory and recall, as well as elucidating the brains delicate balance between opposing forces orchestrated by excitatory and inhibitory neurons.
The brain is an intrinsically dynamic organ thats whats fascinating about it, Sompolinsky said. Think about sleep, dreaming, wandering thoughts, creative actions in arts or sciences, problem-solving. The theory gives us a framework for conceptualizing, quantifying, and studying the link between circuit dynamics and these types of functionalities in the brain.
Over the last 10 years, Sompolinsky has been captivated by advances in artificial intelligence technologies. His current research focuses on deep learning, language models, and reasoning models in artificial neural network settings. His goal is to adapt these models to be biologically plausible, using them to test new theories about how the brain works.
For the first time in the history of the science of intelligence, we have artificial neural networks with strong similarities to the architecture and operation of the brain, Sompolinsky said. We have distributed, experience-dependent processing with amazing cognitive functions that are similar in many ways to human cognition. For me, this is a game changer, and this is where I am working at the interface between AI and neuroscience.
Venkatesh Murthy, the Paul J. Finnegan Family Director of the Center for Brain Science, said, There are few who lay the foundation for a growing field, but thats what Sompolinsky has done for theoretical neuroscience. He brought approaches from physics to understand various ways a network of neurons can interact, which has led to an understanding of how brains can store and retrieve memories, how a brain knows which direction its head is pointing, and how a proper balance between excitatory and inhibitory neurons can be maintained in our brains. Now, he is bringing his customary rigorous physics approaches (and his unbounded energy) to bear on the many exciting puzzles in high-level animal cognition, as well as to the startlingly sophisticated AI models such as ChatGPT. His presence at Harvard has been transformative to many communities here.
Before joining the faculty of Harvard in 2022, Sompolinsky spent most of his academic career as a professor at Hebrew University in Jerusalem, where he is now emeritus. His Ph.D. is from Bar-Ilan University in Israel, and his first appointment at Harvard was as a physics postdoctoral researcher in 1982, working with Professor Bert Halperin.
Sompolinsky was the 2022 recipient of the Gruber Neuroscience Prize and was elected a fellow of the Israel Physical Society that same year. He is a Foreign Honorary Member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and a former recipient of the EMET Prize in Life Sciences-Brain Research.
The Brain Prize 2024 comes with an award of 1.3 million to be shared by the three recipients.
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Harvard neuroscientist Haim Sompolinsky awarded Brain Prize - EurekAlert
Summary: A new study involving participants from 15 countries, shed light on the universal preference for simple integer ratios in rhythms, revealing significant cultural variations in musical perception.
This research, conducted with 39 groups, including people from traditional societies, indicates that while theres a common bias towards certain rhythmic structures, the specific preferences can differ markedly across cultures. The findings suggest that the brains bias towards these rhythms aids in error correction during music production, ensuring the consistency of musical systems across generations.
This landmark study, which is unparalleled in its scope, emphasizes the need for diverse, global research to fully understand the complexities of music perception.
Key Facts:
Source: MIT
When listening to music, the human brain appears to be biased toward hearing and producing rhythms composed of simple integer ratios for example, a series of four beats separated by equal time intervals (forming a 1:1:1 ratio).
However, the favored ratios can vary greatly between different societies, according to a large-scale study led by researchers at MIT and the Max Planck Institute for Empirical Aesthetics and carried out in 15 countries.
The study included 39 groups of participants, many of whom came from societies whose traditional music contains distinctive patterns of rhythm not found in Western music.
Our study provides the clearest evidence yet for some degree of universality in music perception and cognition, in the sense that every single group of participants that was tested exhibits biases for integer ratios. It also provides a glimpse of the variation that can occur across cultures, which can be quite substantial, saysNori Jacoby, the studys lead author and a former MIT postdoc, who is now a research group leader at the Max Planck Institute for Empirical Aesthetics in Frankfurt, Germany.
The brains bias toward simple integer ratios may have evolved as a natural error-correction system that makes it easier to maintain a consistent body of music, which human societies often use to transmit information.
When people produce music, they often make small mistakes. Our results are consistent with the idea that our mental representation is somewhat robust to those mistakes, but it is robust in a way that pushes us toward our preexisting ideas of the structures that should be found in music, says Josh McDermott,an associate professor of brain and cognitive sciences at MIT and a member of MITs McGovern Institute for Brain Research and Center for Brains, Minds, and Machines.
McDermott is the senior author of the study, which appears today inNature Human Behaviour.The research team also included scientists from more than two dozen institutions around the world.
A global approach
The new study grew out of a smaller analysis that Jacoby and McDermott published in 2017. Inthat paper, the researchers compared rhythm perception in groups of listeners from the United States and the Tsimane, an Indigenous society located in the Bolivian Amazon rainforest.
To measure how people perceive rhythm, the researchers devised a task in which they play a randomly generated series of four beats and then ask the listener to tap back what they heard.
The rhythm produced by the listener is then played back to the listener, and they tap it back again. Over several iterations, the tapped sequences became dominated by the listeners internal biases, also known as priors.
The initial stimulus pattern is random, but at each iteration the pattern is pushed by the listeners biases, such that it tends to converge to a particular point in the space of possible rhythms, McDermott says.
That can give you a picture of what we call the prior, which is the set of internal implicit expectations for rhythms that people have in their heads.
When the researchers first did this experiment, with American college students as the test subjects, they found that people tended to produce time intervals that are related by simple integer ratios. Furthermore, most of the rhythms they produced, such as those with ratios of 1:1:2 and 2:3:3, are commonly found in Western music.
The researchers then went to Bolivia and asked members of the Tsimane society to perform the same task. They found that Tsimane also produced rhythms with simple integer ratios, but their preferred ratios were different and appeared to be consistent with those that have been documented in the few existing records of Tsimane music.
At that point, it provided some evidence that there might be very widespread tendencies to favor these small integer ratios, and that there might be some degree of cross-cultural variation. But because we had just looked at this one other culture, it really wasnt clear how this was going to look at a broader scale, Jacoby says.
To try to get that broader picture, the MIT team began seeking collaborators around the world who could help them gather data on a more diverse set of populations. They ended up studying listeners from 39 groups, representing 15 countries on five continents North America, South America, Europe, Africa, and Asia.
This is really the first study of its kind in the sense that we did the same experiment in all these different places, with people who are on the ground in those locations, McDermott says.
That hasnt really been done before at anything close to this scale, and it gave us an opportunity to see the degree of variation that might exist around the world.
Cultural comparisons
Just as they had in their original 2017 study, the researchers found that in every group they tested, people tended to be biased toward simple integer ratios of rhythm.However, not every group showed the same biases. People from North America and Western Europe, who have likely been exposed to the same kinds of music, were more likely to generate rhythms with the same ratios. However, many groups, for example those in Turkey, Mali, Bulgaria, and Botswana showed a bias for other rhythms.
There are certain cultures where there are particular rhythms that are prominent in their music, and those end up showing up in the mental representation of rhythm, Jacoby says.
The researchers believe their findings reveal a mechanism that the brain uses to aid in the perception and production of music.
When you hear somebody playing something and they have errors in their performance, youre going to mentally correct for those by mapping them onto where you implicitly think they ought to be, McDermott says.
If you didnt have something like this, and you just faithfully represented what you heard, these errors might propagate and make it much harder to maintain a musical system.
Among the groups that they studied, the researchers took care to include not only college students, who are easy to study in large numbers, but also people living in traditional societies, who are more difficult to reach.
Participants from those more traditional groups showed significant differences from college students living in the same countries, and from people who live in those countries but performed the test online.
Whats very clear from the paper is that if you just look at the results from undergraduate students around the world, you vastly underestimate the diversity that you see otherwise, Jacoby says.
And the same was true of experiments where we tested groups of people online in Brazil and India, because youre dealing with people who have internet access and presumably have more exposure to Western music.
The researchers now hope to run additional studies of different aspects of music perception, taking this global approach.
If youre just testing college students around the world or people online, things look a lot more homogenous. I think its very important for the field to realize that you actually need to go out into communities and run experiments there, as opposed to taking the low-hanging fruit of running studies with people in a university or on the internet, McDermott says.
Funding: The research was funded by the James S. McDonnell Foundation, the Canadian National Science and Engineering Research Council, the South African National Research Foundation, the United States National Science Foundation, the Chilean National Research and Development Agency, the Austrian Academy of Sciences, the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science, the Keio Global Research Institute, the United Kingdom Arts and Humanities Research Council, the Swedish Research Council, and the John Fell Fund.
Author: Sarah McDonnell Source: MIT Contact: Sarah McDonnell MIT Image: The image is credited to Neuroscience News
Original Research: The findings will appear in Nature Human Behavior
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Rhythm in the Brain: Music Exposure Influences Rhythmic Interpretation - Neuroscience News
Prof. Haim Sompolinsky of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem has been awarded the Brain Prize for 2024, the largest and most prestigious international prize for brain research. The prize is awarded annually by the Lundbeck Foundation of Denmark.
Sompolinsky, who is also affiliated with Harvard University, is a physicist and pioneer in the field of theoretical and computational neuroscience, particularly in the study of neural circuit dynamics in the brain. His research has significantly contributed to understanding how neural circuits process and encode information, map the external world, and participate in learning and memory.
Sompolinsky shares the annual prize totaling 1.3 million euros ($1.4 million) with Prof. Larry Abbott of Columbia University and Prof. Terrence Sejnowski of the Salk Institute, who are also widely recognized for their groundbreaking work in computational and theoretical neuroscience, which applies physics, mathematics and statistics as tools for studying the brain and how it functions.
Haims work over more than 40 years has been instrumental in establishing theoretical and computational neuroscience as a cornerstone of modern brain research, said Richard Morris, chair of The Brain Prize selection committee.
Sompolinsky will be presented the Brain Prize medal by King Frederik on May 30 in Copenhagen, where he was born in 1949. The son of Danish and Hungarian Holocaust survivors who met in Sweden after the war, he is the third of 10 children, and the last to be born in Denmark before his family immigrated to Israel.
During the war, his father, Prof. David Sompolinsky, worked with the Danish Resistance to save 700 co-religionists from extermination by the Nazis, by arranging their escape to Sweden in October 1943.
Haim Sompolinsky as a young boy with his teacher, Rishon Lezion, 1954. (Courtesy of Sompolinsky family)
When asked whether his fathers work as a microbiologist inspired him to become a scientist, Sompolinsky said that while it is hard to know why someone goes into one profession or another, his father undoubtedly was an inspiration. The elder Sompolinsky modeled how a person could combine Orthodox Jewish observance with a deep love of science.
My fathers big library in our living room was a complete chaotic mix of Talmud, Torah and books of Jewish law. In the middle of this were books about mathematics, microbiology and physics. To me, it was a place where I could just pick up a book and read, Sompolinsky recalled.
There was no conflict between religious observance and a professional life in the sciences. I think I inherited from him the idea of leading a coherent lifestyle. I think that being a scientist enriches my religious experiences and insights and vice versa, he said.
In the following interview, edited for length and clarity, The Times of Israel asked Sompolinsky about how theoretical and computational neuroscience helps us understand the brain, where he sees the field going and his reaction to receiving the worlds largest prize for brain research.
The Times of Israel: Why did you decide to pursue research in neuroscience in particular?
Prof. Haim Sompolinsky: It was a matter of personal choice. Many of my physicist colleagues who, like me, worked on the theory of spin glasses branched out to problems in the areas of economics and other complex systems in physics. Some went into the fields of biochemistry or biophysics. For me, neuroscience and the brain presented a very attractive set of problems. Throughout my career, I have always chosen problems that I think are intellectually interesting and worthwhile. It was natural for me to go in the direction of neuroscience because there was a mesh between my interest in the problems and my abilities to contribute to [understanding] them.
Haim Sompolinsky and his wife Elisheva with their family on vacation in Holland, 2016. (Courtesy of Sompolinsky family)
Were you motivated by a desire to find cures for specific neurological diseases?
When we work on basic research, we all hope that it will contribute in the long run to the benefit of humanity, whether it is health, ecology, climate, energy or whatever. But Im a basic scientist and my area of excellence is thinking more about principles and fundamental problems. I dont think Id be very good at applied research, where the details and the short-term goals dominate the thinking and research. My primary interest has been to contribute to understanding the principles of brain function.
Brain research has different levels. Can you explain what these levels are in laymans terms?
People are more familiar with the experimental and empirical aspects of neuroscience. First, there is the molecular level. People often read about discoveries of genes or molecules in the brain. Then there is cellular neuroscience. There is very active and fascinating research in this area, including on the properties of single nerve cells and other cells in the brain aside from neurons.
Then comes the level of circuits, and above it the level of systems. Most of the work in theoretical and computational neuroscience is at the level of circuits and above. We dont study the theoretical principles of molecular neuroscience because, at the level of principles, molecular neuroscience is very similar to molecular biology. The DNA and the expression of proteins in molecules in brain cells are the same as in any other setting in the body. On the other hand, the circuit level is what is unique about the brain and more directly related to computation.
What are some examples of what we can understand by studying brain circuits and systems?
You can ask how a circuit stores information or how it encodes or retrieves memories. You can ask how the visual system in the brain performs cognitive functions associated with vision perception. How do we recognize somebody simply from visual signals? The primary focus of theoretical and computational neuroscience science is to try to understand the relation between the structure of the neurocircuits and the dynamics of the activation of the neurons and the function that comes out of it.
Hebrew University theoretical and computational neuroscientist professor Haim Sompolinsky with junior colleagues in Jerusalem, 2014. (Courtesy of Sompolinsky family)
Do theoretical and computational neuroscientists work on their own, or do they interact with neuroscientists who work in the lab?
Our goal is to make sense of experimental results and even make predictions about what can be expected based on our theoretical models. If you have a good idea, you have to be able to translate it to a concrete model, which means mathematical equations and algorithms and analyzing them. Then you can approach an experimentalist and say, hey, I have a great idea, and here are the predictions and lets see if they are right. By working this way with the experimentalist, we advanced the understanding of the brain.
What do you think will be the legacy that you and other pioneers in theoretical and computational neuroscience will leave to the next generation?
There are several legacies. Ill mention just a couple. First, I think we succeeded in establishing solid foundations based on physics and mathematics for theoretical neuroscience, which will largely remain relevant for future generations. What we started as research is now part of textbooks in the field.
Second, I believe the interdisciplinary nature of brain science research that developed due to our efforts will remain forever. Brain science is no longer just part of biology studies or medical school. Its too complex and important for humanity not to recruit all the intellectual and technical skills of disciplines in science and maybe also in philosophy. Most neuroscience institutes today are multidisciplinary, not only in terms of research but also education. The Hebrew University made a pioneering contribution to the development of multidisciplinary research in neuroscience, and I am very proud and grateful for that.
What are the more recent developments in computational neuroscience that will help carry the field forward?
An important and extremely active research area in neuroscience is artificial intelligence. It is an exciting new direction. We hope to integrate new ideas, tools and models coming from AI into experimental paradigms. AI is already showing its impact in the research of my group and that of others in the last 10 years.
On the technical side of neuroscience, the toolbox for researchers has grown exponentially in terms of devices, electronics, optics and more. With this, the amount of data that is accumulated in neuroscience has grown exponentially, and now we are talking about international observatories and centers that specialize in generating big data for neuroscience research and are open access.
The Brain Prize medal, designed by Georg Jensen. (The Lundbeck Foundation)
What does it mean to you to be awarded The Brain Prize?
It is very satisfactory and a personal honor. For me and my co-winners, it is an expression of the international national recognition of the central contribution and role that theoretical and computational neuroscience plays in contemporary brain research.
You are the first Israeli to be given this award.
Im humbled by my ability to bring honor to Israeli science, particularly at this time.
What does receiving this award from a Danish foundation at a ceremony in Copenhagen mean to you given your familys background?
We were always told about the king of Denmarks empathy and public expression of support for the Jewish community [during World War II]. My going to Copenhagen in a couple of months to receive the prize from the present king, who is a descendant of the wartime one, is going to be very moving.
image:
Prof. Haim Sompolinsky
Credit: Kris Snibbe/Harvard File
Prof. Haim Sompolinsky of the Hebrew University and Harvard University has been awarded the Brain Prize for 2024, the largest and most prestigious international prize in neuroscience.
Prof. Haim Sompolinsky a physicist and neuroscience researcher at the Edmond and Lily Safra Center for Neuroscience (ELSC) at the Hebrew University and Professor at the Center for Brain Science (CBS) at Harvard University is the first Israeli scientist to receive this esteemed prize, which is awarded to pioneers in the field of neuroscience. He shares the prize totaling 1.3 million euros with Professor Larry Abbott at Columbia University (USA) and Professor Terrence Sejnowski at the Salk Institute (USA).
Prof. Sompolinsky is renowned for his groundbreaking work in theoretical and computational neuroscience, particularly in the study of neural circuit dynamics in the brain. His research has significantly contributed to our understanding of how neural circuits process and encode information, map the external world, and participate in learning and memory. Through a combination of theoretical and computational approaches, his work has elucidated key computational principles underlying brain function.
Prof. Sompolinsky responded: I am deeply honored to have been recognized with the Brain Prize 2024, an award that underscores the central contribution of theoretical and computational neuroscience to brain science. This distinction also allows me to highlight the pioneering efforts of the Hebrew University in fostering the development of interdisciplinary brain research.
The Brain Prize, initiated in 2011 and awarded annually by the Lundbeck Foundation, is considered the most prestigious award in neuroscience. It recognizes researchers whose work has advanced the field, from fundamental research to clinical applications. Prof. Sompolinsky's research not only deepens our knowledge of the brain's inner workings but also holds promise for applications in brain-inspired artificial intelligence.
Prof. Asher Cohen, President of the Hebrew University commented: "Prof. Sompolinsky's Brain Prize triumph is a testament to his pioneering contributions in computational neuroscience, unraveling neural circuit dynamics and laying the foundation for insights into information processing. His groundbreaking work inspires artificial intelligence, blending experimentation and theory to illuminate fundamental computational principles in brain function. This recognition not only honors his exceptional achievements but serves as a beacon guiding us toward further revelations at the intersection of neuroscience and computation."
The 2024 Brain Prize will be presented on May 30, 2024 to the three winners, Professor Haim Sompolinsky at Hebrew University (Israel) and Harvard University (USA), Professor Larry Abbott at Columbia University (USA), Professor Terrence Sejnowski at the Salk Institute (USA). The Brain Prize recipients are presented with their award by His Royal Highness, King Frederik of Denmark, at a ceremony in the Danish capital, Copenhagen.
Prof. Haim Sompolinsky is the son of the late Prof. David Sompolinsky, who was born in Denmark. Together with friends from the Danish Underground, he saved hundreds of Danish Jews from Nazi persecution in October 1943 by smuggling them by fishing boats to a safe haven in Sweden.
The Hebrew University of Jerusalem is Israels premier academic and research institution. With over 25,000 students from 90 countries, it is a hub for advancing scientific knowledge and holds a significant role in Israels civilian scientific research output, accounting for nearly 40% of it and has registered over 11,000 patents. The universitys faculty and alumni have earned eight Nobel Prizes and a Fields Medal, underscoring their contributions to ground-breaking discoveries. In the global arena, the Hebrew University ranks 86th according to the Shanghai Ranking. To learn more about the universitys academic programs, research initiatives, and achievements, visit the official website at http://new.huji.ac.il/en
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Prestigious 2024 Brain Prize awarded to Hebrew University's Prof. Haim Sompolinsky by Lundbeck Foundation - EurekAlert
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The Brain Prize medal is awarded to the recipients at a ceremony in Copenhagen. His royal highness, king Frederik of Denmark, attends this ceremony and awards the medals.
Credit: The Lundbeck Foundation
The Lundbeck Foundation has announced the recipients of The Brain Prize 2024, the worlds largest award for outstanding contributions to neuroscience. This years award recognizes the pioneering work of three leading neuroscientists Professor Larry Abbott at Columbia University (USA), Professor Terrence Sejnowski at the Salk Institute (USA), and Professor Haim Sompolinsky at Harvard University (USA) and the Hebrew University (Israel).
Theoretical and computational neuroscience permeates neuroscience today and is of increasingly growing importance. The winners of The Brain Prize 2024 have made pioneering contributions to these scientific areas by uncovering some of the principles that govern the brains structure, function, and the emergence of cognition and behaviour.
Chair of The Brain Prize Selection Committee, Professor Richard Morris, explains the reasoning behind this years award:
It is inconceivable to imagine modern brain sciences without the concomitant development ofn computational and theoretical neuroscience. The three scientists have applied novel and sophisticated approaches from physics, mathematics, and statistics to study the brain. They have developed vital tools for the analysis of highly complex datasets acquired by modern day experimental neuroscientists. The three prize winners have also proposed conceptual frameworks for understanding some of the brains most fundamental processes such as learning, memory, perception and how the brain generates maps of the external world. They have also provided crucial new insights into what may go awry in several devastating disorders of the nervous system, such as epilepsy, Alzheimers disease, and schizophrenia. In addition, their scientific achievements have paved the way for the development of brain-inspired artificial intelligence, one of the emerging and transformational technologies of our time.
On behalf of the Lundbeck Foundation, CEO Lene Skole extends her warmest congratulations to each of the three Brain Prize recipients:
Their pioneering research has created trailblazing knowledge and paved the way for other scientists to better understand critical brain functions, also in relation to diseases. It aligns fully with our purpose of bringing discoveries to lives. Each of their scientific endeavours began in the 70s, and their determination, courage and persistence over decades should serve as inspiration for other scientists, and indeed be rewarded.
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Pioneering work in computational and theoretical neuroscience is awarded the world's largest brain research prize - EurekAlert
With the advent of artificial intelligence (AI), the field of neuroscience is undergoing a transformation. The sheer complexity and intricate dynamics of the human brain have been a challenge for neuroscientists. With the explosion of data, the gap between information and knowledge is becoming increasingly apparent. However, AI is starting to bridge this gap, providing profound insights into the workings of the human brain and paving the way for unprecedented discoveries.
AI is progressively becoming a potent tool in understanding the human brain, simulating the way neurons connect and fire. By mimicking the human brains structure and function, AI algorithms can simulate how the virtual brain reacts to stimuli. This offers invaluable insights into the real brains processes. AIs ability to identify subtle patterns in brain activity is instrumental in accelerating progress in neuroscience research. It is even beginning to demonstrate abilities in understanding the emotional tone in language and generating creative text formats. The application of AI in neuroscience is transforming biology into an engineering discipline, driving innovation and opening doors to unimaginable discoveries.
Publications like the BRAIN journal underscore the intersection of artificial intelligence, cognitive sciences, and neuroscience. Listed in online libraries of universities and organizations, the journal provides original contributions in these fields, emphasizing the increasing reliance of neuroscience on AI. As such, it is clear that AI tools are streamlining neuroscience research, accelerating the pace of innovation and progress in the field.
Elemind, an AI-enhanced neurotech health company, is an excellent example of how AI is revolutionizing neuroscience. With a $12M Seed round, Elemind is developing wearable neurotechnology that reads individual brainwaves and guides them in real-time. This real-time guidance changes behavior in a more targeted, smarter, and natural way than pharmaceuticals, a method which Elemind describes as electric medicine. This adaptive, drug-free approach fine-tunes stimulation based on the bodys response until the desired state is achieved. The technology, backed by five clinical trials and several peer-reviewed scientific journals, has shown effectiveness in inducing sleep, suppressing essential tremors, boosting memory, increasing pain thresholds, and enhancing sedation. Eleminds dynamic neurostimulation techniques and core signal processing algorithms are covered by three critical patents.
At Imperial College London, the Neural Reckoning Group, led by Dan Goodman, is using spiking neural networks to understand how biological and artificial brains reckon or compute. This research is another testament to the potential of AI in neuroscience, showing how AI can be used to decipher the complex computations in both biological and artificial brains.
The integration of AI in neuroscience is a testament to the potential of technological innovation in understanding and enhancing the human brain. As AI continues to evolve, its role in neuroscience will only increase, leading to groundbreaking discoveries and advancements. Whether its understanding the emotional tone in language or enhancing cognitive function, AI is positioning itself at the forefront of neuroscience research. Its not just about gathering more information; its about turning that information into knowledge and understanding, ultimately transforming biology into an engineering discipline.
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Role of AI in Neuroscience Research and Understanding of the Human Brain - Medriva