Rolf Kötter
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
Rolf Kötter
Title: Neuroanatomy taken seriously: Mean-field modelling based on cortical connectivity and geometry
Donders Institute, Radboud University Nijmegen, The Netherlands
Abstract: The term "Connectivity" has many different meanings in the brain. It can be defined at different scales from the synaptic to the regional and cognitive level; and it comprises structural, functional as well as causal concepts, which currently lack congruence or even clear definitions. In this session on connectivity we shall focus on the structural basis for understanding dynamics in brain systems, i.e. the identity of brain structures, their geometric position, as well as the connectivity within and between them. We will first discuss methods for parcellating brains in vivo, in vitro and post-mortem. These parcellations are used in almost all investigations of connectivity. Connectivity can also be determined using widely different direct and indirect methods, such as invasive tract tracing, water diffusibility, or correlated activity, to name just the common ones. Since different methods of determining brain parcels and their interconnections lead to different results, we have to obtain an idea of the reproducibility and validity of various approaches. This method-dependent variability is superimposed by trial-by-trial variability, interindividual variability and interspecies variability. The influence of these factors can be investigated in data-analytic and in modeling studies. At the end of this presentation we will try and assess the influence of such factors in different neuromodeling approaches with or without explicit geometric representation of the cortical sheet.
Bio Sketch: Rolf Kötter is Full Professor and Chair of the Section Neurophysiology & Neuroinformatics at the Donders Institute for Brain, Cognition and Behaviour, Radboud University Nijmegen. He leads a multi-disciplinary group focusing on the following aspects of brain
connectivity:
- Mapping the microcircuitry of the cerebral cortex using flash-induced release of caged neurotransmitter substances and Micro-Electrode Array chips
- Collating the macrocircuitry of the cerebral cortex with advanced databasing and mapping tools (CoCoMac, ORT)
- Systems approaches to modelling and analysis of multi-scale structural and functional data
Dr. Kötter studied medicine and computer science in Germany, England and France. He completed his doctoral thesis in the laboratory of the late O.-E. Brodde (Essen). He pursued advanced studies in neurology at the National Hospital Queen Square (London), and a specialization in neuroinformatics in the laboratories of Günther Palm (Düsseldorf) and Jeff Wickens / Robert Miller (Otago). He received a Helmholtz scholarship from the Federal Ministry of Research and Technology, to run a Computational Systems Neuroscience group at the C. & O. Vogt Brain Research Institute (Düsseldorf). As a specialist in anatomy he worked on the structural determinants of cortical information processing using a combination of morphological, electrophysiological and computational approaches. Since 2006 he is Full Professor of Neurophysiology and Neuroinformatics at Radboud University Nijmegen Medical Centre and Guest Professor at ECUST / China.
Rolf Kötter is Associate Editor of Frontiers in Neuroinformatics, Reviews Editor of PLoS Computational Biology, and Editor of Neuroinformatics as well as other specialty journals in the field. He has edited numerous Special Issues in Computational Neuroscience and a book on 'Neuroscience Databases'.