TEDxVienna - Moritz Helmstaedter - Brain Mapping

Moritz Helmstaedter is a neuroscientist dedicated to mapping connectomes, the complex networks of nerve cells in the brain. A medical doctor and physicist by training, Moritz completed his doctoral thesis with Nobel laureate Bert Sakmann at the Max Planck Institute for Medical Research in Heidelberg, Germany. During his post-doctoral work, together with Winfried Denk and Kevin Briggman, he developed methods to map nerve cell networks using electron microscopes and computer analysis tools. This is making it possible for the first time to decipher large complex networks in the brain at single-cell resolution. He is currently setting up his own laboratory at the Max Planck Institute of Neurobiology in Munich, where he aims to understand the computations in sensory cortex, and to unravel what distinguishes a human brain from, say, that of a mouse, at the structural level. Moritz has pioneered crowd sourcing for connectomics, engaging more than a hundred students to work together to analyze the immense amounts of data. Going forward, he aims at motivating thousands of curious minds to collaborate online on the task of reconstructing the powerful and fascinating neuronal networks of the brain.

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[mrcalm]

Brain isn't just megacomplex, it shows the beauty behind the harmony of this extraordinary complex system without contradiction .. This new science of building brain matrices will take neurosciences to the next level and that will help many patients :).

[mastertheillusion]

Once we map it, and we map it again and again, we will have an understanding and depth of knowledge of the brain far beyond anything previous. And, once we have this knowlege, we will likely engineer, new brains.. And humanity2.0 will be born.

[valadynx]

May 27, 2014 I hope they will map the brain for not only words from the English dictionary but every dictionary around the world.

[KevinGeneFeldman]

I'm interested in this because the treatment and diagnosis of Palinopsia is nonexistent. Perhaps with this, they can figure out why the signals responsible for normal vision are not functioning correctly.

[ochgottnochma]

The Blue Brain project already found the neocortical column, how did they map it? They also developed their own technology for analysing the brain tissue, maybe you work on the same problem and don't know each others data....