The project »Cutting« deals with the technique of forming, changing and opening surfaces and bodies – cutting. Here, researchers from Art History, Computer Science, Biology, Neurosurgery, Linguistics and Brain Research, Physics, Design and Interaction Design jointly research a new perspective on material and data through cutting.
Thus, Designers help evaluate imaging techniques to facilitate the recognition and treatment of brain tumors. Protoypical cutting tools are being developed that examine anatomical data in a virtual reality application, but haptically tangible. An adaptive digital twin will help to simulate the intrinsic activity of body tissue in order to make medical procedures even more accurate and safe in the long run. In addition, a »Sensing Knife« is planned to be developed, which will examine the body and tissue at the nano level in real time during cutting.
Virtual Dissection
The experimental setting »Virtual Dissection« is concerned with the potential utility of virtual reality applications for anatomical and paleontological dissections and preparations. 3D datasets will be transferred into virtual reality and manipulated with new tools while exploiting cutting edge image recognition algorithms for segmentation. In the project, segmentation will be image-guided using a »graph cut« approach. Moreover, the new virtual reality implementation will incorporate haptic (i.e., tangible) force feedback thereby assigning activity to the dataset which now interacts with the experimenter. Potential benefits of a transfer of such datasets from 2D screen representations to 3D virtual reality is that researchers potentially comprehend complex shapes of anatomical structures using gestures to explore anatomy in a more intuitive way and also a multi-sensory integration during the development of mental representations of complex structures. Finally, virtual reality enviroments allow for multi-user collaborative work aiding the formation of shared mental representations. Systematic analysis of user interaction with this protoype application will shed light onto the untapped and overestimated potentials of virtual reality applications for virtual dissections.
Exploring the Material Basis of Symbols
Why are humans capable of acquiring a large number of symbols, and what are the neural material features critical for this extraordinary ability? Here we are exploring the material basis of symbols in the human brain by means of brain-inspired neural models constrained by cortical neuroanatomy, function and obeying well-established neuroscience principles (see figure below). The subproject »exploring the material basis of symbols« aims to explain the cognitive activity (language, symbols, thought) by the structural features of the underlying neural matter present in the human brain, with the ultimate goal to generate brain simulator mimicking essential symbol processing functions with its application to specific healthy and patient brains.
Over and above neurocomputational simulations, neuroimaging and neuropsychological studies (using EEG, TMS, and/or fMRI) will be carried out to determine the neurobiological correlates of linguistic-conceptual and visual-gestalt-like symbolic processes in the human brain. Results will be compared with predictions generated by the neurocomputational model.
Model of lexical and semantic mechanisms.
(a) Structure and connectivity of 12 frontal, temporal and occipital cortical areas relevant for learning the meaning of words related to objects and actions.
(b) Schematic global area structure and connectivity of the implemented model constrained by neurobiological principles.
Figure adapted from »Tomasello, R., et al. (2019). Visual cortex recruitment during language processing in blind individuals is explained by Hebbian learning. Scientific Reports, 9 (1)«
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