Mapping the Brain - Christof Koch and John Donoghue

This is a nice (but short) discussion on progress being made in mapping the brain in order to understand neurological trauma.

Mapping the Brain

Trailblazers in neuroscience, Dr. Christof Koch and Dr. John Donoghue, reveal mind-blowing insights on how the brain turns thought into voluntary behaviors and how that knowledge is empowering victims of neurological trauma with regained physical abilities.


Mapping the Brain from National Geographic Live on FORA.tv
John Donoghue is Henry Merritt Wriston Professor in the Department of Neuroscience at Brown University, Director of the Brown Institute for Brain Science, VA Senior Career Research Scientist, and Director of the Center of Excellence for Neurorestoration and Neurotechnology, Rehabilitation R&D Service, Department of Veterans Affairs Medical Center, Providence, RI. From 1991 to 2006, Dr. Donoghue was the founding Chairman of the Department of Neuroscience at Brown. For more than 20 years, Dr. Donoghue has conducted research on brain computer interfaces and his laboratory is internationally recognized as a leader in this field. Dr. Donoghue has published over 80 scientific articles in leading journals such as Nature and Science, and has served on advisory panels for the National Institutes of Health, the National Science Foundation and NASA. Dr. Donoghue has won awards for his work from Discover, Popular Mechanics, and Reader's Digest magazines. In 2007, he won the K. J. Zulch Prize, Germany's highest honor for neurological research. Dr. Donoghue is a fellow in the American Institute for Medical and Biomedical Engineering and the American Association for the Advancement of Science as well as a member of the board of directors for the MIT Media Lab. Dr. Donoghue received an A.B. from Boston University in 1971, an M.S. in anatomy from the University of Vermont in 1976, and a Ph.D. in neuroscience from Brown University in 1979.

Christof Koch joined the Allen Institute as Chief Scientific Officer in 2011. For the past 25 years, Koch has served on the faculty at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech), from his initial appointment as Assistant Professor, Division of Biology and Division of Engineering and Applied Sciences in 1986, to his most recent position as Lois and Victor Troendle Professor of Cognitive & Behavioral Biology. Previously, he spent four years as a postdoctoral fellow in the Artificial Intelligence Laboratory and the Brain and Cognitive Sciences Department at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He received his baccalaureate from the Lycée Descartes in Rabat, Morocco, his M.S. in physics from the University of Tübingen in Germany and his Ph.D. from the Max-Planck-Institut für Biologische Kybernetik, Tübingen. Koch has published extensively, and his writings and interests integrate theoretical, computational and experimental neuroscience. Stemming in part from a long-standing collaboration with the late Nobel Laureate Francis Crick, Koch authored the book The Quest for Consciousness: A Neurobiological Approach. He has also authored the technical books Biophysics of Computation: Information Processing in Single Neurons and Methods in Neuronal Modeling: From Ions to Networks, and served as editor for several books on neural modeling and information processing. Koch's research addresses scientific questions using a widely multidisciplinary approach. His research interests include elucidating the biophysical mechanisms underlying neural computation, understanding the mechanisms and purpose of visual attention, and uncovering the neural basis of consciousness and the subjective mind. Koch maintains a part-time appointment and laboratory at Caltech.