The lecture is free to attend and open to all, but registration is required in advance
A drinks reception will follow the lecture at 18:30 in rooms SAF 121 & 122, First Floor, Sir Alexander Fleming building.
Register to attend by visiting: bit.ly/ClopathInaugural
Chaired by: Professor Anthony Bull, Head of Department of Bioengineering
Vote of Thanks: Dr Dan Goodman, Lecturer, Department of Electrical and Electronic Engineering
Abstract:
Gaining a better understanding of the brain is an urgent challenge in our society, due to an aging population, which has led to a higher incidence of neurological diseases, such as Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s disease. Neuroscience can be studied under different angles, either experimentally, by measuring different aspects of the brain, or theoretically, by constructing models that mimic the brain. Theses two approaches can work hand-in-hand, where experimental findings influence theoretical models, models allow a broader and more concise understanding, predicting new phenomena, in-turn influencing new experiments. Our lab is on the modelling side, working in tight collaboration with experimental labs. We are especially interested in the field of learning and memory, which is thought to happen when connections between neurons change, a process called synaptic plasticity. This research has two main types of applications: medical applications leading to translational research and engineering applications helping for example to design machines that approach human-like learning capabilities.
Biography:
Professor Claudia Clopath is based in the Bioengineering Department at Imperial College London. She is heading the Computational Neuroscience Laboratory.
Her research interests are in the field of neuroscience, especially insofar as it addresses the questions of learning and memory. She uses mathematical and computational tools to model synaptic plasticity, and to study its functional implications in artificial neural networks.
Prof. Clopath holds an MSc in Physics from the EPFL and did her PhD in Computer Science under Wulfram Gerstner. Before joining Imperial College, she did postdoctoral fellowships in neuroscience with Nicolas Brunel at Paris Descartes and in the Center for Theoretical Neuroscience at Columbia University. She published highly cited articles in top journals such as Science and Nature, has given invited talks and keynotes around the world, and received various prizes.