Speakers

Dr. Yoram Vodovotz is a Professor at the University of Pittsburgh, in the Department of Surgery with secondary appointments in the Department of Computational & Systems Biology, the Department of Bioengineering, the Department of Immunology, the Department of Communication Science and Disorders (of the School of Health and Rehabilitation Science), and the Clinical and Translational Science Institute. He also is the Director of the Center for Inflammation and Regenerative Modeling at the McGowan Institute for Regenerative Medicine. Dr. Vodovotz’ long-term research goals are to obtain high-dimensional, dynamic data on the etiology and progression of various inflammatory processes and diseases in samples derived from cells, animals, and people; to create computational models based on these data; and to modulate the inflammatory response in an optimal spatial, temporal, and individual- / disease-specific manner.

Lluís Fuentemilla is Associate Professor at the Neuroscience Institute, Department of Basic Psychology at the University of Barcelona. Dr. Fuentemilla wants to understand how experiences are initially encoded, undergo further consolidation and are later retrieved. He uses behavioural (including Eye movements), psychophysiological (Skin Conductance) and neural (fMRI, EEG, iEEG) measures to help us learn more about the cognitive and neural operations that contribute to episodic memory in humans. With his group, he further extends our investigation to neurological patients, in special those with lesions in medial temporal lobe regions.  The current research lines of his group are: Uncovering the neural mechanisms of how experiences are organized into memory units; Neural mechanisms of memory consolidation; Autobiographical memory for real-life events; Inferential learning and generalization.

‘G. Minardi’ Laboratory of Cognitive Neuroscience, Dept. Chemistry and Pharmacy, University of Sassari, Italy.

Marco Diana is Professor of Pharmacology at the “Universita’ degli Study di Sassari”, IT. The scientific activity of Marco Diana has been, for the most part, in the field of the neurobiological effects of drugs of abuse on different neuronal systems such as dopaminergic neurons, serotoninergic neurons and pars reticulata cells after chronic treatments with different drugs of abuse and subsequent withdrawal. In particular, his research has identified a tonic reduction in the spontaneous electrophysiological activity of mesolimbic dopaminergic neurons projecting to the nucleus accumbens after withdrawal from chronic treatments with ethanol, opioids and cannabis derivatives. His research has been extended to effects of pharmacological therapies on the “Decision Making” capacities of heroin addicts (Pirastu et al., 2006). Most recently, his research activity focuses on acetaldehyde as a potential biomarker in alcoholism and on the potential therapeutic efficacy of Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation (Diana et al., 2017; Addolorato et al., 2012) on cocaine dependent addicts (Pedetti et al., 2012; Bolloni et al., 2016) and alcoholics (Addolorato et al., 2017).

Encarni Marcos obtained her Ph.D. at the Universitat Pompeu Fabra in the field of Computational Neuroscience. Her expertise is in the Role of Prefrontal Neurons Involved in Both Decision and Motor Processes. In 2015 she joined the Department of Physiology and Pharmacology of  the University La Sapienza di Roma.

Harvard Program for Evolutionary Dynamics, Harvard  University, US.

Prof. Joscha Bach is a cognitive scientist who uses Artificial Intelligence as a framework to understand the nature of motivation, perception, cognition, self modeling and sociality. He studied computer science and philosophy at the Humboldt University of Berlin and the University of Waikato, before receiving his PhD in cognitive science in Osnabrück and working as an AI researcher and lecturer in Berlin and at the MIT Media Lab. He is currently working at the Harvard Program for Evolutionary Dynamics. His book “Principles of Synthetic Intelligence” describes a cognitive architecture grounded in motivation and emotional modulation.

Vincent Hayward is a Professor at the Sorbonne Université in Paris, presently on leave. Before, he was with the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at McGill University, Montréal, Canada, where he became a full Professor in 2006 and was the Director of the McGill Centre for Intelligent Machines from 2001 to 2004. Vincent Hayward is an elected a Fellow of the IEEE. Since January 2017, he is Professor of Tactile Perception and Technology at the School of Advanced Study of the University of London, supported by a Leverhulme Trust Fellowship. Over the past decade, Vincent developed a computational theory of tactile perception that is grounded in the physics of mechanical interactions. During his tenure at the University of London’s School of Advanced Study, Vincent relates this theory to the cognitive and metacognitive functions of the brain and also help develop a tactile communication technology for use by the Deafblind. He also spends part of his time contributing to the development of a start-up company in Paris, Actronika SAS, dedicated to lowering the accessibility barrier of haptic technology.

Dr. Stuart Wilson is a lecturer at the Department of Psychology of the University of Sheffield. The aim of his research is to understand how self- organisation and natural selection interact to shape complex systems, such as brains. To this end, he constructs mathematical and computational models of adaptive self-organising networks. Our research has focused on two model systems; i) self-organising neural network models of the development of topological maps in sensory and motor cortex, and ii) self-organising models of the evolution and development of collective behaviour in animal groups.

Pau Gorostiza graduated in physics at the University of Barcelona (UB), where he also obtained his PhD (European Doctorate) in the field of semiconductor electrochemistry. He also worked at the microscopy facility of the UB, where he gained experience in force microscopy and spectroscopy of biological samples, as well as in nanotechnology applied to materials science. He has visited the CNRS and the University Pierre and Marie Curie in Paris (France), and the University of California at Berkeley (USA), where he switched his research interests toward ion channel electrophysiology and chemical biology, specifically on photopharmacological manipulation of proteins for remotely controlling biological activity. He is currently ICREA Research Professor at the Institute for Bioengineering of Catalonia (IBEC), where he develops light regulated ligands of neuronal proteins, and studies electron transfer in redox proteins and photosynthetic complexes using EC-STM/AFM. He is the principal investigator of 5 Spanish grants, 7 European grants and 4 private foundation grants (including a Career Development Award of the Human Frontier Science Program (HFSP) and European Research Council (ERC) Starting and Proof of Concept Grants). He holds 3 patents, one of which is licensed.

Lars Muckli has a degree in Psychology and is Professor of Visual and Cognitive Neurosciences, Director of functional MRI at Glasgow University since 2007. His research focuses on cortical feedback and predictive coding in the visual cortex. We use functional brain imaging (fMRI, TMS, EEG) to investigate how the brain constructs internal models and feeds information back to the primary visual cortex, V1. We investigate visual illusions, and contextual processing in non-feedforward stimulated parts of V1.

Viktor Jirsa is the Director of the Institute de Neurosciences des Systèmes and Director of Research at the CNRS. Since the late 90s, he has made contributions to the understanding of how network structure constrains the emergence of functional dynamics using methods from nonlinear dynamic system theory and computational neuroscience. Prof. Jirsa has been awarded several international and national awards for his research including the Early Career Distinguished Scholar Award in 2004 and the Francois Erbsmann Prize in 2001. He serves on various Editorial Boards and has published more than 80 scientific articles and book chapters, as well as co-edited several books including the Handbook of Brain Connectivity.

Vicky Vouloutsi is a young scientist with a Ph.D. in Information and Communication Technologies at the Pompeu Fabra University. She is specialized in Neurorobotics. Since 2018 she has a postdoctoral position at the SPECS_lab at the Institute of BioEngineering of Catalonia, in Barcelona, Spain. Her main interest is the modulation of social behaviors in robotic systems and how these behaviors affect the interaction between humans and robots. Her research focuses on the implementation of behaving systems in robotic educational settings. She has contributed to several European projects such as EFAA, and WYSIWID EASEL.

Dr. Christine Aicardi originally trained in applied mathematics, computer sciences and project management, with a Master of Engineering from the Ecole Nationale des Ponts et Chaussées in France. After her MSc in 2003 at the London Centre for the History of Science, Medicine and Technology, she was funded by the ESRC through my doctoral studies, and in 2010 she obtained a PhD in Science and Technology Studies at UCL, in the area of Artificial Life. Dr. Aicardi is presently a Senior Research Fellow in the Human Brain Project Foresight Laboratory. The Lab aims to evaluate the potential social and ethical implications of the knowledge and technologies produced by the Human Brain Project for European citizens, society, industry, and economy. Her long-standing research interests are the contemporary history of the sciences and technologies of brain and mind; the social studies of interdisciplinary practices and of scientific/intellectual movements; the co-development of ICTs, their usages and users; and increasingly, the politics of memory in science.

Daniel Pacheco is a young scientist with a Ph.D. in Information and Communication Technologies at the Pompeu Fabra University. He is specialized in Computational Neuroscience. Since 2018 he has a postdoctoral position at the SPECS_lab at the Institute of BioEngineering of Catalonia, in Barcelona, Spain. His main interest is understanding spatial memory and he is investigating the Spatial-Context Effect in Recognition Memory.