Title: Analyzing the energy demands of the human brain
Oct 2019: The human brain has high energy demands but the energetic demands of brain network organization is still unknown. With a novel brain imaging technique (simultaneous PET/MRI), we are currently able to measure both energy metabolism of glucose and oxygen, as well as dynamic network organization. ...
June 2019: Valentin received a planning grant from the German VolkswagenStiftung that aims at new research territories between life and natural sciences. The new initiative is called 'Change of course'. With the help of this proposal, Valentin's group wants to initiate neuroenergetic modeling to bridge theknowledge gap between the molecular and systems level of the brain. He will therefore team up with colleagues from mathematics, physics, and engineering for "Modelling neuroenergetics design".
Are you a research group leader at LMU, MPI, or TUM? I guess, we all struggle with the same questions: How to handle administration, run a little research 'start-up', and develop an overall research strategy? I want to initiate a meetup for Munich-based research group leaders to find collaborators and exchange on academic topics. Are you from Munich or know someone? Join the meetup-group here:
May 2019: We expected identical effects across the cortex after stimulation with TMS, but our results show that stimulation effects substantially vary across individuals and brain regions. The manuscript is available on bioRxiv and we provide data/code on OpenNEURO. The figure shows
Feb 2019: We published the first application of our novel, directional signaling measure to brain data from patients with Alzheimer's disease (AD). We found that specific routes of directional signaling, or effective connectivity, are disrupted in the default mode network of patients. This approach,
Oct 2018: Katarzyna established metabolic imaging of GABA and glutamate in my lab and published important work on the dynamics of these neurotransmitters in the human brain. You can find the paper in the Journal of Neuroscience: Opposite dynamics of GABA and glutamate levels in the occipital cortex during visual processing.
Here's some press coverage of our work on GABA/glutamate signaling in the human brain.
Feb 2018: During the next 5 years, Valentin will apply novel methods and simultaneous PET/MRI brain imaging to track memory consolidation in the human brain. ERC grants are prestigious funding from the European Research Council of the EU.
Dec 2017: Katarzyna Kurcyus did a great job during her PhD-period in my lab and successfully submitted her PhD thesis "Using magnetic resonance spectroscopy to study neural activity: The role of inhibitory and excitatory neurotransmitters for systems-level brain dynamics"
