When: Jan 28th, 2021 – 3:00 pm

Where: Zoom meeting. Recording available on Mediaspace

Abstract: It is said that complexity lies between order and disorder. In physiology, complexity issues are being considered with increased emphasis. Of crucial importance in the medical setting, pathological activity has been associated with low variability/complexity. In the case of the nervous system, it is well known that excessive synchronization is connected with pathologies such as epilepsy and Parkinson disease. However, brain rhythms and neural synchronization are also crucial for perception and cognition, so it is clear that either too much or not enough synchronization can lead to dysfunctional brain states.

Short bio: After receiving an undergraduate degree in biochemistry, Olaf Sporns earned a PhD in Neuroscience at Rockefeller University and conducted postdoctoral work at The Neurosciences Institute in New York and San Diego. Currently he is the Robert H. Shaffer Chair, a Distinguished Professor, and a Provost Professor in the Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences at Indiana University in Bloomington. Sporns holds adjunct appointments in the School of Informatics, Computing and Engineering, and in the School of Medicine. His main research area is theoretical and computational neuroscience, with a focus on complex brain networks. In addition to over 250 peer-reviewed publications he has written two books, “Networks of the Brain” and “Discovering the Human Connectome”. He is the Founding Editor of “Network Neuroscience”, a journal published by MIT Press. Sporns received a John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Fellowship in 2011, and the Patrick Suppes Prize in Psychology/Neuroscience, awarded by the American Philosophical Society, in 2017. He is a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and the Society of Experimental Psychologists and of the Society of Experimental Psychologists.