Talk by Jörn Diedrichsen (SMSS Colloquium)

Title: New mathematical tools for the study of brain representations and brain modularity

Abstract: Recent technical advances allow the observation neural activity in the human brain at unprecedented spatial and temporal resolutions. When trying to understand the observed complexity, however, the richness of data poses many new analytical problems. In my talk, I will present some new mathematical and statistical approaches to address two important question: First, how do the observed patterns of activity related to external world and behaviour - i.e. how does the brain represent the external world? Secondly, what is the internal structure of the neural activity? Specifically, does the brain consist of distinct functional modules, or does functional specialization vary smoothly across the brain? Using a novel broad-spectrum functional magnetic resonance imaging data set, I will present some new ideas to reveal the hidden topology of brain activity.