The Virtual Brain

The 2021 Course of the school of brain cells and circuits will be dedicated to modelling the brain from local microcircuits properties to large scale network properties, essential to understand how the brain works.

Preliminary Programme

Arrival day – 30th November 2021

9pm : Evening gathering in the Marsala Cellar St. Rocco Monastery, main cloister
Marsala wine and marzipan pastries typical of Erice.

Music and chats as people join in.

Day 1 – 1st December 2021

8:30 – INTRODUCTION TO THE COURSE

Why modeling the brain? Where are we now?
Egidio D’Angelo, Claudia Gandini Wheeler-Kingshott, Viktor Jirsa

9:00 – Multi-scale brain modeling
Egidio D’Angelo

10:00-10:30 – Coffee break & posters display

I – FROM NEURONS TO MICROCIRCUITS

10:30 – Physiologically realistic models
Michele Migliore

11:30 – Brain scaffold builders
Claudia Casellato

12:30-14:30 – Lunch

14:30 – Mean field models
Alain Destexhe

15:30 – Neuromorphic computation
Oliver Rhodes

16:30 – Poster blitz
Chairman: Michele Migliore

Day 2 – 2nd December

II – THE LARGE SCALE BRAIN

8:30 – The Allen Brain Atlas
Stefan Mihalas (only remotely)

9:30 – Brain reconstruction from histology
Roxana Kooijmans

10:30-11:00 – Coffee break

11:00 – In vivo microstructure characterisation
Marco Palombo

12:00 – Advanced in vivo tissue features with MRI
Mara Cercignani

13:00-15:00 – Lunch

15:00 – Poster blitz (20 posters, 3 min each, 1 slide)
Chair: Claudia Casellato

16:00-16:30 – Coffee break

16:30 – MRI to probe information on brain structure and function
Claudia Gandini Wheeler-Kingshott

17:30 – The Bayesian brain
Karl Friston (only remotely)

20:00 – SOCIAL DINNER

Day 3 – 3rd December 2021

III – BRAIN FUNCTION FROM NETWORKS

9:00 – Neural activities and ensemble properties
Nikos Logothetis

10:00 – Modeling heterogeneity in local brain dynamics
Gustavo Deco

11:00-11:30 – Coffee break

11:30 – Poster Blitz
Chair: Fulvia Palesi

12:30-14:30 – Lunch break

14:30 – Modeling neurodegenerative disorders
Petra Ritter

15:30 – The Virtual Aging Brain
Viktor Jirsa

16:30 – DISCUSSION
All speakers

17:30 – Poster prize

18:00 – Closing of the meeting

Departure day – 4th December 2021

Farewell

Speakers

• Claudia Casellato – University of Pavia, Italy
• Mara Cercignani – CUBRIC, Cardiff, UK
• Gustavo Deco – Universitat Pompeu Fabra, Barcelona, Spain
• Alain Destexhe – CNRS, Paris, France
• Egidio D’Angelo – University of Pavia, Italy
• Karl Friston – University College London, UK
• Claudia Gandini Wheeler-Kingshott – University College London, UK & University of Pavia, Italy
• Viktor Jirsa – AIX Marseille, France
• Roxana Kooijmans – Netherland Institute of Neuroscience, Amsterdam, Holland
• Nikos Logothetis – International Center for Primate Brain Research (ICPBR), Shanghai, China
• Michele Migliore – CNR Palermo, Italy
• Stefan Mihalas – Allen Institute, Seattle, USA
• Fulvia Palesi – University of Pavia, Italy
• Marco Palombo – University College London, UK
• Oliver Rhodes – University of Manchester, Manchester, UK
• Petra Ritter – Charitè, Berlin, Germany