Maps of Thinking: The Neural Network Survey

Dr. Moritz Helmstaedter, Direktor Max-Planck-Institut für Hirnforschung
am 30. Januar 2017

Our brain is an impressive achievement: it enables us to recognize friends even in poor visibility, to find our car, to distinguish abstract patterns. The goal of our research is to understand how our brain is able to perform such tasks. Structurally, one of the most impressive phenomena of our nervous system is the enormously complex communication between billions of nerve cells. Each neuron communicates directly with more than one thousand other neurons – more communication partners than most people have!
The goal of the new research field ‘Connectomics’ is to map the communication structure of nerve cell networks and thus unravel the cables in the brain. In this lecture Moritz Helmstaedter presented the latest breakthroughs of Connectomics, starting with powerful electron microscopes up to data analysis by humans and computers. In order to make data analysis for large data sets possible, Helmstaedters Research Department develops scientific computer games with the aim of inspiring the public for research and motivating them to help. In this way, the neurosciences want to get closer to an understanding of the amazing computer that operates in our heads.