Site-Writing Technologies of Capture. Copyright: Maxime Le Calvé
Two-Day Workshop and Installation on Mixed Reality Crafting at Kunstgewerbemuseum Berlin
In December 2023, the Kunstgewerbemuseum Berlin will host the workshop »Site-Writing with Technologies of Capture« in partnership with the ExC »Matters of Activity«. This workshop, curated by Maxime Le Calvé, is a collaboration between the Speculative Realities Lab (MoA, Charité), Shauna Janssen, a visiting scholar from Concordia University in performance studies and site-specific practices, and the Berlin-based artist duo MELT. The dual focus of this two-day workshop is an interdisciplinary exploration of the notions of border and dis/orientation, and the first presentation of Subcortical Matters, an immersive brain data visualization platform developed by the SpecLab.
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Schematic illustration of constraints for making neural networks more similar to real brains: The models can be used as tools to predict and/or explain behavior and brain activity patterns. The brain area and connectivity diagram on the right has been kindly provided by Rosario Tomasello and the local circuit diagram in the middle is reprinted, with permission, from Schmidt et al. 2018.
Friedemann Pulvermüller and his Team Publish Study on Causal Effects of Language on Thought
The influence of language on human thinking could be stronger than previously assumed. This is the result of a new study by Professor Friedemann Pulvermüller and his team from the Brain Language Laboratory at Freie Universität Berlin. In this study, the researchers examined the modeling of human concept formation and the impact of language mechanisms on the emergence of concepts. The results were recently published in the journal »Progress in Neurobiology«.
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Brain Networks and Plasticity
Hugues Duffault Holds Lecture at Charité
Accompanying the »Brain Roads« Workshop during Berlin Science Week, Hugues Duffau will share and discuss his groundbreaking insights into the mapping of different brain functions and his revolutionary work in awake brain surgery, which has not only changed surgical practice but also increased our understanding of the intricate processes of the human brain. The lecture will be held on November 3rd from 10.00 am to 12.30 pm at Charité - Universitätsmedizin Berlin's Dermatology Lecture Hall.
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Brainroads. Copyright: Lene Zech
Exploring Neuroplasticity through Art and Science
Like the sculptor with marble, neurosurgeons dialogue with the brain they operate on. Mapping and representing these ›brain roads‹ can be achieved through various imaging methods, which help neurosurgeons extend their knowledge of the cerebral anatomy. The French Professor in neuro-oncology Hugues Duffau is famous for operating on low-grade gliomas by performing awake surgery with very little technology. His methodology includes a complex mix of techniques, disciplines and experiments based on the concept of neuroplasticity and a limited use of medical imaging in the operating room. The workshop, organized by Patricia Ribault, will explore these »Brain Roads« during Berlin Science Week on November 2nd from 10.00 am– 5.00 pm.
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Image of the cortical ends of the white matter of the human brain, created in the »Matters of Activity« Cluster of Excellence. Copyright: MoA/Lucius Fekonja
In this prognostic study of 112 patients and 70 patients with glioblastoma, published in JAMA Neurology, a newly developed white matter tract density index (TDI) was significantly associated with the overall survival of patients with glioblastoma. The TDI had a stronger correlation and survival prediction than other commonly used prognostic factors. The TDI appears to be a reliable predictor of patient outcomes; given these findings, this index may be considered in future clinical trials and potentially incorporated into clinical practice.
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Copyright: Nadezhda Moryak
Presentation at the Long Night of the Sciences 2023
Are your senses up for a challenge? Dive into our interactive experiment and put your memory to the test as you enter Virtual Reality to explore digital objects using both vision and touch. Will you be able to recognize objects while racing against time? Researchers from the »Virtual Dissection« team of the Cluster of Excellence »Matters of Activity« invite you to unlock the secrets of working memory performance while delving into how our brains deal with sensory information. Join us at the Long Night of the Sciences on June 17th at Zuse-Institute!
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Brain-constrained Neural Modeling Explains Fast Mapping of Words to Meaning
New Publication by Cluster Members Rosario Tomasello and Friedemann Pulvermüller
Although teaching animals a few meaningful signs is usually time-consuming, children acquire words easily after only a few exposures, a phenomenon termed »fast mapping«. Meanwhile, most neural network learning algorithms fail to achieve reliable information storage quickly, raising the question of whether a mechanistic explanation of fast mapping is possible. Here, we applied brain-constrained neural models mimicking fronto-temporal-occipital regions to simulate key features of semantic associative learning.
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Exemplary visualization of the arcuate fasciculus. Copyright: Reisch, Böttcher, Tuncer, Schneider, Vajkoczy, Picht and Fekonja
Results of the Study Now Published on Pubmed
In this study, to which MoA Members Lucius Fekonja and Thomas Picht contributed to, the authors looked at a new way to use transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS, a brain stimulation method) to map language in the brain. The new method uses information about the brain's white matter pathways to target specific areas of the brain that are important for language. The study compared this new method to a more general method that targets a wider area of the brain. We found that the new method was more effective in disrupting language abilities and provided more specific information about the brain regions involved in language. This new method could be useful in future studies of the brain's language network.
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Sketching brains. Copyright: Maxime Le Calvé
An Ethnographic Participant Exhibition at the Neurosurgery Department of Charité in Berlin
»Sketching Brains« is a collaborative exhibition-as-research project which intends to trigger new conversations around the act of sketching in and about neurosurgical practice. Based on a series of fieldwork within the Neurosurgical Department at Charité-Universitätsmedizin Berlin by graphic ethnographer Maxime Le Calvé and on the research of neurosurgeon and cultural scientist Anna L. Roethe, this initiative takes the form of conversations based on graphic-based stories, presented and continued both onsite and online. In German and English, the texts are comment-enabled to bring the community to react and question the description. The ›participant exhibition‹ becomes a vibrant collaborative forum, choreographed by the ethnographer, to understand more profoundly the implications of neurosurgery in people’s lives, on both sides of the scalpel.
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Tagesspiegel Special Neurology: Copyright: Tagesspiegel
Cutting Portrayed in Tagesspiegel Special Neurology
An article written by Thomas Picht, Patricia Ribault, Jürgen P. Rabe and John Nyakatura has been published in the Tagesspiegel Special on Neurology. »Cutting, separating and exposing are ancient human cultural techniques. The Cluster of Excellence project »Cutting« is investigating them on the basis of tumors in the brain and of fossils in rock. The results could change the future of neurosurgery.« Read the full article and find out more about how »Cutting« and the »Virtual Sensing Knife« can change the future of medicine!
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Adaptive Digital Twin
The »Adaptive Digital Twin« project focuses on neuroscientific questions and predictive models concerning patients with brain tumors from different disciplinary perspectives. Subject-specific adaptive digital twin models are concepts that allow us to evaluate and simulate the effects of pathologies or tumor resectioning on the anatomy, function and connectivity of the central nervous system.
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Sensing Knife
Achieving a minimal level of lesion is often essential when cutting and manipulating materials. For this, we foresee an immense advance with the invention of cutting tools able to detect and distinguish materials based on their properties at the relevant scales.
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Mapping of shear wave speed as surrogate of stiffness in abdominal organs based on tomoelastography compared with conventional imaging such as T2-weighted magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) and T1-weighted MRI and computed tomography.
https://doi.org/10.1038/s42254-022-00543-2. Copyright: Ingolf Sack
The effects of brain tumors on brain function are difficult to predict due to the complexity of individual brain networks and the brain's potential for functional reorganization. Invasive and noninvasive brain imaging techniques can help to better understand the effects of brain tumors on brain networks and improve treatment efficacy and levels of control.
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From Brain Matter to Cognitive Function. Copyright: Rosario Tomasello
Understanding the mechanisms by which the structure and function of neuronal populations bring about specific cognitive functions is the aim of this project. Using models of specific parts of the brain, the team aims to engineer and imitate motor function, symbol production and understanding using precise mathematical models of the human cortex.
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Brain Roads
Brain Roads is an interdisciplinary French-German project for the visualization and interactive exploration of the brain. It brings together designers, engineers and researchers in neurosurgery and humanities. Its ambition is to develop visual representations and interactive tools for exploring white matter. We wish to bridge the analog and the digital in a cooperation regime between the specific knowledge of some outstanding neurosurgeons, which we will try to translate into visual forms, and new representations of brain models, which allow us to explore dense, digitalized matter, and to visualize its changes of state, but also its zones of uncertainty.
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The Speculative Realities Lab. Copyright: Maxime Le Calvé
The SpecLab is a space connecting neurosurgery, anthropology, and the immersive arts. It contributes to expanding their respective disciplinary equipment – conceptual, material, and digital – in order to animate brain-related knowledge for navigation, prediction, and inspiration. We want to make neurosurgery appear strange again in order to unsettle certain ›status quo‹ of the clinical practice.
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Dissect event, Tieranatomisches Theater, 02.11.22, Cluster of Excellence »Matters of Activity« | Joffrey Becker, Maaike Bleeker, Samuel Bianchini, Horst Bredekamp, Johann Habakuk Israel, Thomas Picht, Margrit Shildrick, Patricia Ribault. Copyright: Samuel Bianchini
»Behavioral Matter« proposes a new approach to processes of giving form – ›Gestaltung‹ – based on a living, semi-living and non-living meshwork of things, and demonstrated by innovative formats to perform and disseminate the research.
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