© Pint of Science, 2024. All rights reserved.
The human brain has been the object of numerous studies and it holds the secrets to understanding and fighting many serious diseases. But how do we study it? How will understanding the mechanisms behind the functioning of the brain or the development of Alzheimer’s make our lives better? We asked the fish and the computers for some answers.
Studying the brain: lessons from a striped fish
Anaïs Bécot
(Post-doc researcher - U1266, Equipe du Dr Guillaume van Niel)
To this day, Alzheimer’s disease remains a challenging disease to prevent and treat. The mechanisms involved in the pathology take place both inside of cells and outside of them. How can we see extracellular vesicles (compartments 100x smaller than a cell, with a role in cellular communication) and understand their role in the development of Alzheimer’s disease? This talk will highlight a model organism, the zebrafish, with a unique advantage to achieve this study: it is see-through!
Using AI to read minds and predict behaviour
Demian Wassermann
(Researcher - MIND team, Inria, CEA, Université Paris Saclay)
How well can we guess what someone is thinking about? Predict who will sort a deck of cards faster by looking at people’s brains?
In this talk, we will see how brain images can tell us if you were reading, tapping a song with your fingers, or maybe, just spacing out. These brain images are so complex that we need to develop new artificial intelligence methods to understand them.
So come share a pint, and take a stroll. We will go from how we take pictures of our brain; to figuring out what is where on this complex organ's surface; and understand ourselves better in disease and health.
In this talk, we will see how brain images can tell us if you were reading, tapping a song with your fingers, or maybe, just spacing out. These brain images are so complex that we need to develop new artificial intelligence methods to understand them.
So come share a pint, and take a stroll. We will go from how we take pictures of our brain; to figuring out what is where on this complex organ's surface; and understand ourselves better in disease and health.
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