Henry Markram

Henry Markram

Henry Markram is Director of the Blue Brain Project, Director of the Center for Neuroscience & Technology and co-Director of the Brain Mind Institute at École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL).

He obtained his B.Sc. (Hons) from Cape Town University, South Africa under the supervision of Rodney Douglas and his Ph.D. from the Weizmann Institute of Science, Israel, under the supervision of Menahem Segal. During his Ph.D. work, he discovered a link between acetylcholine and memory mechanisms by showing that acetylcholine modulates the primary receptor linked to synaptic plasticity.

Markram went to the United States as a Fulbright Scholar at the National Institutes of Health (NIH), where he studied ion channels on synaptic vesicles. He then went as a Minerva Fellow to the Laboratory of Bert Sakmann at the Max Planck Institute, Heidelberg, Germany, where he discovered calcium transients in dendrites evoked by sub-threshold activity, and by single action potentials propagating back into dendrites. He also began studying the connectivity between neurons, describing in great detail how layer 5 pyramidal neurons are interconnected.

He was the first to alter the precise millisecond relative timing of single pre- and post-synaptic action potentials to reveal a highly precise learning mechanism operating between neurons - now reproduced in many brain regions and known as spike timing-dependent synaptic plasticity (STDP). These experiments were carried out in 1993, four years before publication. Although there were some correlation-sensitive findings before, this was the first study that manipulated single pre- and post-synaptic spike times to monitor the effect of synaptic changes.

Markram was appointed assistant professor at the Weizmann Institute of Science, where he started systematically dissecting out the neocortical column. He discovered that synaptic learning can also involve a change in synaptic dynamics (called redistribution of synaptic efficacy) rather than merely changing the strengths of connections. He also revealed a spectrum of new principles governing neocortical microcircuit structure, function, and emergent dynamics. Based on the emergent dynamics of the neocortical microcircuit he and Wolfgang Maass developed the theory of liquid computing, or high entropy computing.

In 2002 he moved to EPFL as full professor and founder/director of the Brain Mind Institute and Director of the Center for Neuroscience and Technology. At the BMI, in the Laboratory for Neural Microcircuitry, Markram has continued to unravel the blueprint of the neocortical column, building state-of-the-art tools to carry out multi-neuron patch clamp recordings combined with laser and electrical stimulation as well as multi-site electrical recording, chemical imaging and gene expression. Markram has received numerous awards and published over 75 papers.

External links

* [http://bmi.epfl.ch/page61216.html Laboratory of Neural Microcircuitry]
* [http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-2874207418572601262 Lecture at IBM Research's Almaden Institute Conference on Cognitive Computing in 2006]
* [http://www.seedmagazine.com/news/2008/03/out_of_the_blue.php?utm_source=SB-bottom&utm_medium=linklist&utm_content=magazine&utm_campaign=internal%2Blinkshare Interview with Henry Markram in Seed Magazine, 2008]


Wikimedia Foundation. 2010.

Игры ⚽ Нужна курсовая?

Look at other dictionaries:

  • Blue Brain — Cet article possède un paronyme, voir : Le cerveau bleu. Le projet Blue Brain, littéralement cerveau bleu , a pour objectif de créer un cerveau synthétique par processus de reverse engineering. Fondé en mai 2005 à l École Polytechnique de… …   Wikipédia en Français

  • Liquid state machine — A liquid state machine (LSM) is a computational construct, like a neural network. An LSM consists of a large collection of units (called nodes , or neurons ). Each node receives time varying input from external sources (the inputs) as well as… …   Wikipedia

  • Blue Brain — is a project, begun in May 2005, to create a computer simulation of the brain of mammals including the human brain, down to the molecular level. Mission to build a simulated brain begins (news), project of Institute at the École Polytechnique… …   Wikipedia

  • Blue Brain — Saltar a navegación, búsqueda El proyecto Blue Brain[1] tiene como objetivo estudiar la estructura del cerebro de mamíferos creando una simulación de todo el cerebro a nivel molecular. Esta ingeniería inversa del comportamiento permitirá avanzar… …   Wikipedia Español

  • Blue Brain — Das Blue Brain Projekt versteht sich als Pionierprojekt zum Verständnis der Funktionsweise des Gehirns durch die Bildung groß angelegter Computermodelle. Es wurde von Henry Markrams Brain and Mind Institute der École Polytechnique in Lausanne… …   Deutsch Wikipedia

  • Spike timing dependent plasticity — (STDP) is a general term for functional changes in neurons and at synapses that are sensitive to the timing of action potentials in connected neurons. The phrase STDP typically refers to increases or decreases in the efficacy of synaptic… …   Wikipedia

  • École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne — Infobox University name = École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne motto = established = 1853, Opened 1869 type = Public head label = President head = Patrick Aebischer city = Lausanne state = Vaud country = Switzerland coor =… …   Wikipedia

  • Mind uploading — This page is about whole brain emulation in futurism, transhumanism and science. See also Mind uploading in fiction. Whole brain emulation or mind uploading (sometimes called mind transfer) is the hypothetical process of transferring or copying a …   Wikipedia

  • AGEPoly — École polytechnique fédérale de Lausanne Pour les articles homonymes, voir École polytechnique. École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, Lausanne …   Wikipédia en Français

  • EPFL — École polytechnique fédérale de Lausanne Pour les articles homonymes, voir École polytechnique. École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, Lausanne …   Wikipédia en Français

Share the article and excerpts

Direct link
Do a right-click on the link above
and select “Copy Link”