Giorgio Ascoli
Keynote speakers
- Kenji Doya
- Alon Halevy
- Astrid Prinz
- Andrew Schwartz
- Shankar Subramaniam
- Arthur Toga
Workshop speakers
- Bart ter Haar Romeny
- Uri Eden
- Klaus Linkenkaer-Hansen
- Tim Clark
- Alan Ruttenberg
- Jeffrey Grethe
- Arnd Roth
- Wulfram Gerstner
- Peter Hunter
- Markus Diesmann
- Andrey Semin
- Pietro Liò
- Albert Cardona
- Giorgio Ascoli
- Rolf Kötter
Workshop 5, The neuroinformatics of neural connectivity
Giorgio Ascoli
Title: Coming of Age of the Hippocampome
Center for Neural Informatics, Structure, & Plasticity; and Molecular Neuroscience Dept., Krasnow Institute for Advanced Study, George Mason University, Fairfax, Virginia , USA
Abstract: The "connectome" or connectivity map of the brain is a long-standing goal in neuroscience. Once a visionary dream of Golgi and Cajal, charting the mammalian connectome has been recently recognized as a pressing, if challenging, priority in biomedical research. Different neuroscience sub-communities are targeting a broad range of scales, from the identification of all individual synapses in model organisms with electron microscopy, to long-range regional connections in the human brain with non-invasive imaging. How complete a connectome could realistically be expected in a finite time frame depends on the analytical level of detail. We argue that current technology and knowledge are mature to achieve a quantitative mapping of connectivity at the level of specific neuronal classes for a well-defined portion of the mammalian nervous system, such as the hippocampus. The resulting "hippocampome" will provide a probability of synaptic connection between any given pair of individual pre- and post-synaptic neurons. This database would represent an invaluable resource for both computational applications and empirical investigations. Moreover, a cell-level connectivity map could also constitute a natural framework to build a more comprehensive information system by adding physiological and molecular features to the anatomical foundation.
Bio sketch: Dr. Giorgio A. Ascoli received a Ph.D. in Biochemistry and Neuroscience from the Scuola Normale Superiore of Pisa, Italy, and continued his research at the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, MD, to investigate protein structure and binding in the nervous system. He moved to the Krasnow Institute for Advanced Study at George Mason University in 1997, where he is Professor in the Molecular Neuroscience Department. He is also founder and Director of the Center for Neural Informatics, Structure, and Plasticity, a multidisciplinary research group which includes psychologists, biologists, physicists, computer scientists, engineers, mathematicians, and physicians. Dr Ascoli is founding Editor-in-Chief of the journal Neuroinformatics and Past President of the Potomac Chapter of the Society for Neuroscience. Dr Ascoli contributed to the establishment of the fields of computational neuroanatomy and neuroinformatics. His own laboratory investigates the relationship between brain structure, activity, and function from the cellular to the circuit level. In the long term, Dr Ascoli seeks to create large-scale, anatomically plausible neural networks to model entire portions of a mammalian brain, such as the hippocampus. Dr Ascoli's interests also involve human memory and consciousness.