Gary Marcus - The Trouble with Brain Science (On an Open Letter to the European Commission about the Human Brain Project)

Last week, more than 600 of the world's leading brain scientists, neuroscientists, and other brain researchers crafted and signed an open letter to the European Commission asking for changes in their funding agenda for the Human Brain Project, the European version of our own "Brain Research through Advancing Innovative Neurotechnologies" project funded by the Obama administration. They pledge not to apply for or accept funding if the changes are not made (see the open letter below).

In the New York Times, neuroscientist Gary Marcus offered his comments on, and support for, this effort to change the research model away from a computational paradigm centered on creating a computer simulation of the human brain.

Among the 600+ signees are Chris Frith (UCL, London) and Giacomo Rizzolatti (Università di Parma, Italy).

The Trouble With Brain Science

By GARY MARCUS
JULY 11, 2014

Credit Tim Lahan

ARE WE EVER going to figure out how the brain works?

After decades of research, diseases like schizophrenia and Alzheimer’s still resist treatment. Despite countless investigations into serotonin and other neurotransmitters, there is still no method to cure clinical depression. And for all the excitement about brain-imaging techniques, the limitations of fMRI studies are, as evidenced by popular books like “Brainwashed” and “Neuromania,” by now well known. In spite of the many remarkable advances in neuroscience, you might get the sinking feeling that we are not always going about brain science in the best possible way.

This feeling was given prominent public expression on Monday, when hundreds of neuroscientists from all over the world issued an indignant open letter to the European Commission, which is funding the Human Brain Project, an approximately $1.6 billion effort that aims to build a complete computer simulation of the human brain. The letter charges that the project is “overly narrow” in approach and not “well conceived.” While no neuroscientist doubts that a faithful-to-life brain simulation would ultimately be tremendously useful, some have called the project “radically premature.” The controversy serves as a reminder that we scientists are not only far from a comprehensive explanation of how the brain works; we’re also not even in agreement about the best way to study it, or what questions we should be asking.

The European Commission, like the Obama administration, which is promoting a large-scale research enterprise called the Brain Initiative, is investing heavily in neuroscience, and rightly so. (A set of new tools such as optogenetics, which allows neuroscientists to control the activity of individual neurons, gives considerable reason for optimism.) But neither project has grappled sufficiently with a critical question that is too often ignored in the field: What would a good theory of the brain actually look like?

Different kinds of sciences call for different kinds of theories. Physicists, for example, are searching for a “grand unified theory” that integrates gravity, electromagnetism and the strong and weak nuclear forces into a neat package of equations. Whether or not they will get there, they have made considerable progress, in part because they know what they are looking for.

Biologists — neuroscientists included — can’t hope for that kind of theory. Biology isn’t elegant the way physics appears to be. The living world is bursting with variety and unpredictable complexity, because biology is the product of historical accidents, with species solving problems based on happenstance that leads them down one evolutionary road rather than another. No overarching theory of neuroscience could predict, for example, that the cerebellum (which is involved in timing and motor control) would have vastly more neurons than the prefrontal cortex (the part of the brain most associated with our advanced intelligence).

But biological complexity is only part of the challenge in figuring out what kind of theory of the brain we’re seeking. What we are really looking for is a bridge, some way of connecting two separate scientific languages — those of neuroscience and psychology.

Such bridges don’t come easily or often, maybe once in a generation, but when they do arrive, they can change everything. An example is the discovery of DNA, which allowed us to understand how genetic information could be represented and replicated in a physical structure. In one stroke, this bridge transformed biology from a mystery — in which the physical basis of life was almost entirely unknown — into a tractable if challenging set of problems, such as sequencing genes, working out the proteins that they encode and discerning the circumstances that govern their distribution in the body.

Neuroscience awaits a similar breakthrough. We know that there must be some lawful relation between assemblies of neurons and the elements of thought, but we are currently at a loss to describe those laws. We don’t know, for example, whether our memories for individual words inhere in individual neurons or in sets of neurons, or in what way sets of neurons might underwrite our memories for words, if in fact they do.

The problem with both of the big brain projects is that too few of the hundreds of millions of dollars being spent are devoted to spanning this conceptual chasm. Both projects are making important contributions: the European effort is helping build infrastructure for data integration; the American project is emphasizing the development of state-of-the-art tools for collecting new kinds of data. But as anyone in a field richer in data than theory (like weather forecasting) can tell you, amassing data is only a start.

The success of both the Human Brain Project and the Brain Initiative will ultimately rest not just on the data to be collected but also on what can be done with those data once they are collected. On that, too little has been said.

~ Gary Marcus, a professor of psychology at New York University, is an editor of the forthcoming book “The Future of the Brain: Essays by the World’s Leading Neuroscientists.”

* * * * *

Here is the open letter to the EU concerning the Human Brain Project:

Open message to the European Commissionconcerning the Human Brain Project

July 7, 2014

We the undersigned members of the European neuroscience community are writing to express our concern with the course of the Human Brain Project (HBP). The HBP, and its cousin the U.S. BRAIN Initiative, have the noble goal of making major advances in our understanding of both normal and pathological brain function. Given the potentially enormous benefits to society that would be gained from achieving this goal, it deserves a significant collective investment of our societies’ resources.

However, the HBP has been controversial and divisive within the European neuroscience community from the beginning. Many laboratories refused to join the project when it was first submitted because of its focus on an overly narrow approach, leading to a significant risk that it would fail to meet its goals. Further attrition of members during the ramp-up phase added to this narrowing.

In June, a Framework Partnership Agreement (FPA) for the second round of funding for the HBP was submitted. This, unfortunately, reflected an even further narrowing of goals and funding allocation, including the removal of an entire neuroscience subproject and the consequent deletion of 18 additional laboratories, as well as further withdrawals and the resignation of one member of the internal scientific advisory board.

A formal review of the HBP is now scheduled to evaluate the success of the project’s ramp-up phase and the plan for the next phase. At stake is funding on the order of 50M€ per year European Commission for the “core project” and 50M€ in “partnering projects” provided largely by the European member states’ funding bodies.

In this context, we wish to express the view that the HBP is not on course and that the European Commission must take a very careful look at both the science and the management of the HBP before it is renewed. We strongly question whether the goals and implementation of the HBP are adequate to form the nucleus of the collaborative effort in Europe that will further our understanding of the brain.

It is stated that the review must address the excellence, impact as well as the quality and efficiency of implementation. We believe that a review will show that there are substantial failures to meet these criteria, especially concerning the quality of the governance demonstrated and the lack of flexibility and openness of the consortium.

In order to carry out the upcoming review in the most transparent and accountable manner possible, we hold that it should meet the following criteria:

• The panel should be composed of highly regarded members of the scientific community whose views reflect the diversity of approaches within neuroscience.
• The review process should be transparent: review panel members identities should be disclosed and the goals, procedures and output of the review process should be public.
• The panel should be independent: the members of the panel should not be involved in the development of, advocacy for, or governance of the HBP; they should provide a signed disclosure of any significant funding or scientific relationships to the HBP.
• The EC must by regulation evaluate if the HBP is meeting the core criteria of the FET Flagship Project, including scientific excellence, impact and quality of implementation. We call attention to concerns raised by the sparse community support and systematic loss of HBP partners that appear highly relevant to the FET criteria of:
  • Extent to which the consortium enables fostering complementarities, exploiting synergies, and enhancing the overall outcome of regional, national, European and international research programmes.
  • Quality of the proposed governance and management structure.
  • Openness and flexibility of the consortium.
• Based on this review, the panel should make binding recommendations concerning the continuation of the HBP as a whole as well as continuation of individual subprojects, including the allocation of resources across subprojects and the possible creation of new subprojects.
• The panel should be tasked and empowered to create a transparent process for the formulation of the calls for partnering projects and the review of applications for those calls, such that these reflect community input, are coordinated with the core but are independent of the core administration.
• One or more members of the panel should continue to serve as the core of an external steering committee for the period of the funding under review. These continuing members would need to be fully independent of the project (i.e. receiving no funding).

In the case that the review is not able to secure these objectives, we call for the European Commission and Member States to reallocate the funding currently allocated to the HBP core and partnering projects to broad neuroscience-directed funding to meet the original goals of the HBP—understanding brain function and its effect on society. We strongly support the mechanism of individual investigator-driven grants as a means to provide a much needed investment in European neuroscience research. The European Research Council would provide a well-proven mechanism for allocating such funds.

In the event that the European Commission is unable to adopt these recommendations, we, the undersigned, pledge not to apply for HBP partnering projects and will urge our colleagues to join us in this commitment.

1. Moshe Abeles. Bar-Ilan University. Israel.
2. Ad Aertsen. University of Freiburg. Germany.
3. Silvia Arber. FMI. Switzerland.
4. Philippe Ascher. University of Paris. France.
5. Francesco Battaglia. Radboud Universiteit. Netherlands.
6. Daphne Bavelier, University of Geneva. Switzerland.
7. Heinz Beck. University of Bonn. Germany.
8. James Bednar. University of Edinburgh. UK.
9. Tim Behrens. Oxford University. UK.
10. Suliann Ben Hamed. ISC Lyon. France.
11. Benedikt Berninger. University Medical Center Mainz. Germany.
12. Hugues Berry. INRIA. France.
13. Matthias Bethge. University of Tuebingen. Germany.
14. Timothy Bliss. MRC. UK.
15. Vincent Bonin. NERF. Belgium.
16. Jan Born. University of Tübingen. Germany.
17. Axel Borst. MPI. Germany.
18. Gerard Borst. Erasmus MC Rotterdam. Netherlands.
19. Michael Brecht. BCCN.Germany.
20. Nils Brose. MPI. Germany.
21. Jo Bury. VIB. Belgium.
22. Matteo Carandini. UCL. UK.
23. Alan Carleton. University of Geneva. Switzerland.
24. Pico Caroni. FMI. Switzerland. 
25. Frederic Chavane. CNRS Marseille. France.
26. Leonardo Chelazzi. University of Verona. Italy.
27. Eugenia Chiappe. Champalimaud Centre for the Unknown. Portugal.
28. Albert Compte. IDIBAPS Barcelona. Spain.
29. Rui Costa. Champalimaud Centre for the Unknown. Portugal.
30. Peter Dayan. University College of London. UK.
31. Alexandre Dayer. University of Geneva. Switzerland.
32. Gonzalo de Polavieja. Champalimaud Centre for the Unknown. Portugal.
33. Chris de Zeeuw. Erasmus MC, Rotterdam. Netherlands.
34. Sophie Deneve. ENS. France.
35. Winfried Denk. MPIMR Heidelberg. Germany.
36. Mathew Diamond. SISSA. Italy.
37. David DiGregorio. Institut Pasteur. France.
38. Ray Dolan. UCL. UK. 
39. Rodney Douglas. ETH. Switzerland.
40. Andreas Draguhn. University of Heidelberg. Germany.
41. Jean Rene Duhamel. ISC Lyon. France
42. Thomas Euler. University of Tubingen. Germany.
43. Karl Farrow. NERF. Belgium.
44. Julia Fischer. Leibniz Institut fur Primatentforschung. Germany.
45. Jozsef Fiser. CEU. Hungary.
46. Tamar Flash. Weizmann Institute. Israel.
47. Eckhard Friauf. University of Kaiserslautern. Germany.
48. Rainer Friedrich. FMI. Switzerland.
49. Pascal Fries. ESI and MPI. Germany.
50. Chris Frith. UCL. London.
51. Vittorio Gallese. University of Parma. Italy.
52. Theo Geisel. MPI. Germany.
53. Martin Giese. University of Tübingen. Germany.
54. David Golomb, Ben-Gurion University, Israel.
55. Lyle Graham. CNRS, U Paris Descartes. France.
56. Boris Gutkin. ENS. France.
57. Helmut Haas. University of Dusseldorf. Germany.
58. Sebastian Haesler. NERF. Belgium.
59. Richard Hahnloser. ETH. Switzerland.
60. David Hansel. University of Paris. France.
61. Riitta Hari. Aalto University. Finland.
62. Ken Harris. UCL. UK.
63. Michael Hausser. UCL. UK.
64. Fritjof Helmchen. University of Zurich. Switzerland.
65. Moritz Helmstaedter. MPI. Germany.
66. Matthias Hennig. University of Edinburgh. UK.
67. Sonja Hofer. University of Basel. Switzerland.
68. Klaus-Peter Hoffmann. Ruhr University Bochum. Germany.
69. Daniel Huber. University of Geneva. Switzerland.
70. Denis Jabaudon. University of Geneva. Switzerland.
71. Reinhard Jahn. MPIMR. Germany.
72. Peter Janssen. KU Leuven. Belgium.
73. Sebastian Jessberger. University of Zurich. Switzerland.
74. Adam Kampff. Champalimaud Centre for the Unknown. Portugal.
75. Jason Kerr. Caesar. Germany.
76. Jozsef Kiss. University of Geneva. Switzerland.
77. Fabian Kloosterman. NERF. Belgium.
78. Etienne Koechlin. ENS. France.
79. Arvind Kumar. University of Freiburg. Germany.
80. Peter Latham. UCL. UK.
81. Gilles Laurent. MPI Frankfurt. Germany.
82. Mate Lengyel. Cambridge University. UK.
83. Juan Lerma Gomez. Instituto de Neurociencias Alicante. Spain.
84. Susana Lima. Champalimaud Centre for the Unknown. Portugal.
85. Nikos Logothetis. MPI Tübingen. Germany.
86. Matthieu Louis. CRG. Spain.
87. Heiko Luhmann. University Medical Center Mainz. Germany.
88. Giuseppe Luppino. University of Parma. Italy.
89. Andreas Luthi. FMI. Switzerland.
90. Christian Machens. Champalimaud Centre for the Unknown. Portugal.
91. Zachary Mainen. Champalimaud Centre for the Unknown. Portugal.
92. Rafael Malach. Weizmann Institute. Israel.
93. Miguel Maravall. Instituto de Neurociencias Alicante. Spain.
94. Troy Margrie. NIMR. UK.
95. Kevan Martin. ETH. Switzerland.
96. Guillaume Masson. CNRS Marseille. France.
97. Gero Miesenboeck. Oxford. UK.
98. Marta Moita. Champalimaud Centre for the Unknown. Portugal.
99. Edvard Moser. Kavli Institute. Norway.
100. May-Britt Moser. Kavli Institute. Norway.
101. Tom Mrsic-Flogel. University of Basel. Switzerland.
102. Andreas Neef. MPIMR. Germany.
103. Israel Nelken. Hebrew University. Israel.
104. Stephan Neuhauss. University of Zurich. Switzerland.
105. Andreas Nieder. University of Tübingen. Germany.
106. Hendrikje Nienborg. University of Tübingen. Germany.
107. Zoltan Nusser. Institute of Experimental Medicine. Hungary.
108. Guy Orban. University of Parma. Italy.
109. Christophe Pallier, CNRS-INSERM, Paris-Saclay, France
110. Stefano Panzeri. Italian Institute of Technology. Italy.
111. Rony Paz. Weizmann Institute. Israel.
112. Barak Pearlmutter. NUI Maynooth. Ireland.
113. Mathias Pessiglione. ICM. France.
114. Chris Petkov. Newcastle University. UK.
115. Leopoldo Petreanu. Champalimaud Centre for the Unknown. Portugal.
116. Alexandre Pouget. University of Geneva. Switzerland.
117. Martin Raff. UCL. UK.
118. Alfonso Renart. Champalimaud Centre for the Unknown. Portugal.
119. Giacomo Rizzolatti. Università di Parma. Italy.
120. David Robbe. INMED. France.
121. Botond Roska. FMI. Switzerland.
122. Stefan Rotter. University of Freiburg. Germany.
123. Nava Rubin. ICREA and DTIC, Universitat Pompeu Fabra. Spain.
124. Simon Rumpel. IMP. Austria.
125. Matthew Rushworth. University of Oxford. UK.
126. Stefan Schaal. MPI. Germany.
127. Andreas Schaefer. NIMR UCL. UK
128. Peter Scheiffele. University of Basel. Switzerland.
129. Elad Schneidman. Weizmann Institute. Israel.
130. Jan Schnupp. University of Oxford. UK.
131. Bernhard Scholkopf. MPI Tübingen. Germany.
132. Erin Schuman. MPI Frankfurt. Germany.
133. Martin Schwab. University of Zurich. Switzerland.
134. Cornelius Schwarz. University of Tuebingen. Germany.
135. Sophie Schwartz. University of Geneva.Switzerland.
136. Peggy Series. University of Edinburgh. UK.
137. Noam Shemesh. Champalimaud Centre for the Unknown. Portugal.
138. Oren Shriki. Ben Gurion University. Israel.
139. Angus Silver. UCL. UK.
140. Angela Sirigu. ISC Lyon. France.
141. Haim Sompolinsky. Hebrew University. Israel. 
142. Walter Stuhmer. MPI. Germany.
143. German Sumbre. ENS, France.
144. Alexandre Thiele. Newcastle University. UK.
145. Peter Thier. University of Tübingen. Germany.
146. Simon Thorpe. CNRS Toulouse. France.
147. Alessandro Treves. SISSA. Italy.
148. Nachum Ulanovsky. Weizmann Institute. Israel.
149. Wim Vanduffel. KU Leuven. Belgium.
150. Rufin Vogels. KU Leuven. Belgium.
151. Patrik Vuilleumier. University of Geneva. Switzerland. 
152. Felix Wichmann. University of Tuebingen. Germany.
153. David Willshaw. University of Edinburgh.UK.
154. Fred Wolf. MPI Göttingen. Germany. 
155. Daniel Wolpert. Cambridge University. UK.
156. Emre Yaksi. NERF. Belgium.

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The open letter was sent to the EC at 07/07/2014, 00:00. All signatures listed above were received prior to that time and so were included in the letter. The signatures below are listed by time of registration. 

157. Hugues Berry. INRIA. France
158. Aldo Faisal. Imperial College London. United Kingdom
159. Simon Schultz. Imperial College London. United Kingdom
160. Sofie Valk. MPI. Germany
161. Nick Franks. Imperial College. United Kingdom
162. Alex Gomez-Marin. Champalimaud Neuroscience Programme. Portugal
163. Michael Orger. Champalimaud Centre for the Unknown. Portugal
164. Jean-Marc Fritschy. University of Zurich. Switzerland
165. Daniele Marinazzo. University of Gent. Belgium
166. Cyrille Rossant. UCL. United Kingdom
167. Jon Simons. University of Cambridge. United Kingdom
168. Srdjan Ostojic. ENS Paris. France
169. Wouter De Baene. Ghent University. Belgium
170. Maria Luisa Vasconcelos. Champalimaud Centre for the Unknown. Portugal
171. Paul Chadderton. Imperial College London. United Kingdom
172. Bernd Sutor. University of Munich. Germany
173. Carlos Ribeiro. Champalimaud Centre for the Unknown. Portugal
174. Konrad Kording. Northwestern University. United States
175. Jochen Staiger. University Medicine Goettinge. Germany
176. Jan Zimmermann. Maastricht University. Netherlands
177. Martina Wicklein. Imperial College London. United Kingdom
178. John van Opstal. Radboud University Nijmegen. Netherlands
179. Marc van Wanrooij. Radboud University Nijmegen. Netherlands
180. Tomas Ros. University of Geneva. Switzerland
181. Pierre-Alexandre Klein. Université catholique de Louvain. Belgium
182. Stefano Ferraina. Sapienza University . Italy
183. Robert Dickinson. Imperial College London. United Kingdom
184. Davide Zoccolan. SISSA. Italy
185. Georg Keller. Friedrich Miescher Institute. Switzerland
186. David Poeppel. Max-Planck-Institute, NYU. Germany
187. Claudio Luzzatti. Università di Milano-Bicocca. Italy
188. Natalie Sebanz. Central European University. Hungary
189. Federica Bianca Rosselli. SISSA. Italy
190. George Dimitriadis. Radboud University. Netherlands
191. Guenther Knoblich. Central European University. Hungary
192. Douglas Steele. University of Dundee. United Kingdom
193. Giorgio Gilestro. Imperial College London. United Kingdom
194. Sina Tafazoli. SISSA. Italy
195. Mark Humphries. University of Manchester. United Kingdom
196. Rainer Engelken. MPI DS. Germany
197. Roger Carpenter. University of Cambridge, Department of Physiology, Development and Neuroscience. United Kingdom
198. Ahmed El Hady. Max Planck Institute for Biophysical Chemistry. Germany
199. Richard van Wezel. Radboud University Nijmegen. Netherlands
200. Stefan Treue. German Primate Center. Germany
201. Ivan Raikov. Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology. Japan
202. Carl van Vreeswijk. CNRS. France
203. Dirk Kamin. MPI. Germany
204. Job van den Hurk. KU Leuven. Belgium
205. Christian Schnell. Cardiff University. United Kingdom
206. Yves Trotter. CNRS. France
207. Arnaud Delorme. CNRS. France
208. Megan Carey. Champalimaud Centre for the Unknown. Portugal
209. Joseph Paton. Champalimaud Neuroscience Programme. Portugal
210. Benoît Girard. CNRS & UPMC. France
211. Egemen Konu. University of Nottingham. United Kingdom
212. Ronald Garduno. University of New Mexico. United States
213. Detlev Schild. Univ Göttingen. Germany
214. Henry Kennedy. INSERM. France
215. Umberto Castiello. University of Padova. Italy
216. Miguel Coelho. Movimento ao Serviço da Vida. Portugal
217. Raul Gainetdinov. Istituto Italiano di Tecnologia. Italy
218. Gagan Sidhu. N/A. Canada
219. Loren Looger. Howard Hughes Medical Institute, Janelia Farm Research Campus. United States
220. Marco Guenza. Università degli Studi di Torino. Italy
221. Hilary King. Retired ENAIP. United Kingdom
222. Thomas Kreuz. CNR. Italy
223. David Attwell. UCL. United Kingdom
224. Anna Kuppuswamy. UCL. United Kingdom
225. Chiara Begliomini. Dept. General Psychology, University of Padova. Italy
226. Vahid Esmaeili. SISSA. Italy
227. Alessandro Di Filippo. SISSA. Italy
228. Charles Capaday. Paris V. France
229. Laszlo Negyessy. Wigner RCP, Hungarian Academy of Sciences . Hungary
230. Timothy O'Leary. Brandeis University. United States
231. Sofia Soares. Champalimaud Centre for the Unkown. Portugal
232. Ana Vasconcelos. HSM-CHLN. Portugal
233. Rosa Garcia-Verdugo. MPI. Germany
234. Irini Skaliora. Biomedical Research Foundation of the Academy of Athens. Greece
235. Gil Costa. Champalimaud Foundation. Portugal
236. Francois Genoud. University of Vienna. Austria
237. Aman Saleem. UCL. United Kingdom
238. Pascal Belin. Aix-Marseille University. France
239. Sara A Solla. Northwestern University. United States
240. Catherine Tallon-Baudry. Ecole Normale Supérieure. France
241. Catarina Seabra. University of Porto. Portugal
242. Jens Kremkow. State University of New York College of Optometry . United States
243. Hans-Peter Frey. Columbia University. United States
244. Michael Gutnick. The Hebrew University. Israel
245. Andras Lakatos. University of Cambridge. United Kingdom
246. Michael P. I. Becker. University of Muenster. Germany
247. Ulrich Leischner. Leibniz-Institute of Photonic Technologies. Germany
248. Dante Chialvo. CONICET. Argentina
249. Shervin Safavi. MPI Tübingen. Germany
250. Catarina Carona. I3S. Portugal
251. Bence Ölveczky. Harvard University. United States
252. Andrew Straw. IMP. Austria
253. Lyle Long. Penn State Univ.. United States
254. Simion Pruna. Institute "Prof. N. Paulescu". Romania
255. Tod Thiele. Max Planck Institute of Neurobiology. Germany
256. Tomas Hromadka. Slovak Academy of Sciences. Slovakia
257. Stephen Eglen. University of Cambridge. United Kingdom
258. Tansu Celikel. Radboud University Nijmegan. Netherlands
259. Curtis Moshay. SynergyED™.org. United States
260. Igor Kagan. German Primate Center. Germany
261. Daniel Bendor. UCL. United Kingdom
262. Richard Born. Harvard Medical School. United States
263. Gasper Tkacik. IST Austria. Austria
264. Maneesh Sahani. UCL. United Kingdom
265. Vikram Chib. Johns Hopkins University. United States
266. Rava Azeredo da Silveira. Ecole Normale Supérieure. France
267. Hakwan Lau. UCLA. United States
268. Taha Yasseri. University of Oxford. United Kingdom
269. David Brito. University of Coimbra. Portugal
270. Duda Kvitsiani. Cold Spring Harbor Labs. United States
271. Zoltan Toroczkai. University of Notre Dame. United States
272. Laurence Hunt. UCL. United Kingdom
273. Emmanuel Procyk. CNRS. France
274. John Huguenard. Stanford University. United States
275. Stephen Coombes. University of Nottingham. United Kingdom
276. Leon Lagnado. University of Sussex. United Kingdom
277. Claudia Freire. Universidad A Coruna . Spain
278. Duje Tadin. University of Rochester. United States
279. Jean-Pierre Nadal. CNRS & EHESS. France
280. Masahito Yamagata. Harvard University. United States
281. Nathaniel Daw. New York University. United States
282. Mir-Shahram Safari. Brain Science Institute, RIKEN. Japan
283. Philippe Millet. University of Geneva. Switzerland
284. Michael Bale. Instituto de Neurociencias Alicante UMH-CSIC. Spain
285. Andreas Roepstorff. Aarhus University. Denmark
286. André Mouraux. Université catholique de Louvain. Belgium
287. Herc Neves. Uppsala University. Sweden
288. ROBERTO COLOM. UNIVERSIDAD AUTONOMA DE MADRID. Spain
289. Louis-Marie PLUMEL. Idiap Research Institute. Switzerland
290. Walter Paulus. Herr. Germany
291. Ryota Kanai. University of Sussex. United Kingdom
292. Kanchana Pandian. Indian Institute of Technology Bombay. India
293. Hugo Cook. DePaul University. United States
294. Boris Chagnaud. LMU Munich. Germany
295. laurent cohen. ICM. France
296. Roberto Livi. University of Florence. Italy
297. Annycke xavier. in vivo brain. France
298. Alessandro Villa. University of Lausanne. Switzerland
299. Alessandro Torcini. Istituto dei Sistemi Complessi, Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche. Italy
300. Leszek Kaczmarek . Nencki Institute. Poland
301. Jordi Garcia-Ojalvo. Universitat Pompeu Fabra. Spain
302. yehezkel ben-ari. iNSERM. France
303. Oliver Schlüter. European Neuroscience Institute. Germany
304. Oscar Marin. King's College London. United Kingdom
305. Bert Kappen. Radboud University. Netherlands
306. Robert Hickman. Institute of Molecular Biology. Austria
307. Mark Hübener. MPI. Germany
308. Marcus Kaiser. Newcastle University. United Kingdom
309. Giovanni Galizia. Universität Konstanz. Germany
310. Antony Morland. University of York. United Kingdom
311. Flor Kusnir. University of Glasgow. United Kingdom
312. Fabian Sinz. University Tuebingen. Germany
313. Tim Gollisch. University Medical Center Göttingen. Germany
314. Dori Derdikman. Technion. Israel
315. Alexander Attinger. FMI. Switzerland
316. Alex Wade. University of York. United Kingdom
317. Rosalina Fonseca. Gulbenkian Institute of Science. Portugal
318. Wim Melis. University of Greenwich. United Kingdom
319. Thomas Wiecki. Brown University. Germany
320. Brent Doiron. University of Pittsburgh. United States
321. Bernd Porr. University of Glasgow. United Kingdom
322. Dave Langers. University of Nottingham. United Kingdom
323. Marco Manca. SCImPULSE Foundation. Switzerland
324. Rob Campbell. University of Basel. Switzerland
325. vincent torre. SISSA. Italy
326. Stijn Michielse. Maastricht University. Netherlands
327. maysam oladazimi. center of integrative neuroscience . Germany
328. Daniele Zullino. University Geneva. Switzerland
329. Joost Dessing. Queen's University Belfast. United Kingdom
330. Izumi Fukunaga. NIMR. United Kingdom
331. Theofanis Panagiotaropoulos. Max Planck Institute for Biological Cybernetics. Germany
332. Boris B. Quednow. University of Zurich. Switzerland
333. Peter Smittenaar. UCL. United Kingdom
334. Robert van Beers. VU University Amsterdam. Netherlands
335. Ho Ko. University College London, Chinese University of Hong Kong. Hong Kong
336. Miloud Hadj Achour. IUSTI. France
337. Molly Crockett. University of Oxford. United Kingdom
338. Evelyne Sernagor. Newcastle university. United Kingdom
339. Bertram Gerber. Leibniz Institute of Neurobiology. Germany
340. Claire Wyart. Inserm/ICM. France
341. Alia Benali. University of Tuebingen. Germany.. Germany
342. Jaime de la Rocha. IDIBAPS. Spain
343. Stephen Brickley. Imperial College London. United Kingdom
344. Eva BONDA. NeuroAIsthesis. France
345. Marc Toussaint. University of Stuttgart. Germany
346. Emilio Palomares. ICIQ. Spain
347. Yael Niv. Princeton university. United States
348. David Brown. UCL. United Kingdom
349. Maria-Magdolna Ercsey-Ravasz. Babes-Bolyai University. Romania
350. Diogo Trigo. King's College London. United Kingdom
351. Dennis Goldschmidt. ETH/University of Zurich. Switzerland
352. Alexander Ecker. University of Tübingen. Germany
353. Rosario Sanchez Pernaute. Inbiomed Foundation. Spain
354. Kenneth Knoblauch. Inserm U846, Stem Cell and Brain Research Institute. France
355. Michael Nitsche. University Medical Center, Goettingen. Germany
356. Christian Plewnia. Department of Psychiatry and Psychotherapy, University of Tübingen. Germany
357. Garikoitz Azkona. University of Barcelona. Spain
358. Maria-Rosario Luquin. University of Navarra . Spain
359. David Omer. MPI. Germany
360. Simon Baumann. Newcastle University. United Kingdom
361. Hugo van den Berg. Warwick University. United Kingdom
362. Matt Smear. University of Oregon. United States
363. Benoit Scherrer. Harvard Medical School. United States
364. Lionel Naccache. ICM. France
365. Claudia Feierstein. Champalimaud Neuroscience Programme. Portugal
366. Raiko Stephan. FMI. Switzerland
367. Caitlin Johnston. Arizona State University. United States
368. William Harris. University of Cambridge. United Kingdom
369. Torsten Fregin. AWI. Germany
370. Matthias Kaschube. FIAS. Germany
371. Peter beim Graben. Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin. Germany
372. Wolfger von der Behrens. University and ETH Zurich. Switzerland
373. Marco Pelizzone. University of Geneva. Switzerland
374. Peter Roberts. University of Bristol. United Kingdom
375. Nouchine Hadjikhani. Harvard University. United States
376. Marco Lanzilotto. University of Modena and Reggio Emilia. Italy
377. Regina Dahlhaus. FAU. Germany
378. Leon Fonville. King's College London. United Kingdom
379. Bernard Scott. Center for Sociocybernetics Research,Bonn. United Kingdom
380. Michele Guerra. University of Parma. Italy
381. Peter Bremen. Radboud University. Netherlands
382. Petko Kiriazov. Bulgarian Academy of Sciences. Bulgaria
383. Serafim Rodrigues. Plymouth University. United Kingdom
384. Menno Witter. Norwegian University of Science and Technology. Norway
385. Nicolas canil. maison de Lauberiviere. Canada
386. Carsten Mehring. University of Freiburg. Germany
387. Stefan Kiebel. TU Dresden. Germany
388. John Wood. UCL. United Kingdom
389. Cyril Monier. CNRS. France
390. Marc Spehr. RWTH Aachen University. Germany
391. Timothy Verstynen. Carnegie Mellon University. United States
392. Frank Kirchhoff. University of Saarland. Germany
393. Georg Nagel. Univ. Wuerzburg. Germany
394. Alessandra Lintas. University of Lausanne. Switzerland
395. Gaia Novarino. IST Austria. Austria
396. Dongsung Huh. Gatsby Computational Neuroscience Unit, UCL. United Kingdom
397. Emmanuel Klinger. MPI. Germany
398. Peter Kirsch. University of Heidelberg. Germany
399. Jan Benda. University Tuebingen. Germany
400. Klaas Enno Stephan. University of Zurich & ETH Zurich. Switzerland
401. Luis Miguel Martinez. Instituto de Neurociencias de Alicante. Spain
402. Manuel Berning. MPI. Germany
403. teresa gimenez barbat. tercera cultura. Spain
404. Daniela Martínez de la Mora. Universitat Pompeu Fabra. Spain
405. Judit Makara. IEM. Hungary
406. Ludovic Righetti. MPI. Germany
407. Vishal Kapoor. MPI Tübingen. Germany.. Germany
408. Shawn Mikula. MPI. Germany
409. naomi middelmann. private citizen. Switzerland
410. Ines de Vega. Ludwig Maximilian University Munich. Germany
411. Maria José Rodrigo. University of La laguna. Spain
412. Julian Anslinger. Freelancer. Austria
413. Patrick Becker. Humboldt-University, Berlin. Germany
414. Steven Rose. Open University. United Kingdom
415. Manuel de Vega. University of La Laguna. Spain
416. Boris Kotchoubey. University of Tübingen. Germany
417. Manuela Piazza. Inserm. France
418. Ahmed Hisham Gardoh. Radboud university Nijmegen. Netherlands
419. Romain Franconville. Janelia Farm Research Campus (HHMI). United States
420. Jonny Kohl. Harvard University. United States
421. Javier Diaz-Nido. Universidad Autonoma de Madrid. Spain
422. Robert Hindges. Kings College London. United Kingdom
423. Urs Köster. UC Berkeley. United States
424. Antonio Rangel. Caltech. United States
425. Heliodoro Ruiperez. Retired. Spain
426. José M. Delgado-García. Universidad Pablo de Olavide. Spain
427. Helga Müller. Stadtschulrat für Wien. Austria
428. Wolfram Schultz. University of Cambridge. United Kingdom
429. Robert Bauer. Translational Neurosurgery. Germany
430. Friedrich Johenning. Charité University Medicine Berlin. Germany
431. Manuel Pastor. Universitat Pompeu Fabra. Spain
432. Christine Tardif. Max-Planck-Institute for Human Brain and Cognitive Sciences. Germany
433. Albert Costa. ICREA- Universitat Pompeu Fabra. Spain
434. Núria Sebastián Gallés. Universitat Pompeu Fabra. Spain
435. Jonas Obleser. Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences. Germany
436. Philipp Kanske. Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences. Germany
437. Ghislaine Dehaene-Lambertz. INSERM. France
438. Olivier Coulon. CNRS. France
439. Ernst Fehr. University of Zurich. Switzerland
440. Christopher Steele. Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences. Germany
441. Dierk Reiff. University Freiburg. Germany
442. Hilke Plassmann. ENS / INSEAD. France
443. Anton Sirota. Ludwig-Maximilians Universität München. Germany
444. Alon Korngreen. Bar-Ilan University. Israel
445. Izhar Bar-Gad. Bar-Ilan University. Israel
446. dieter swandulla. university of bonn. Germany
447. Ramon Carbo-Dorca. University of Girona. Spain
448. Agnès Gruart. Pablo de Olavide University. Spain
449. Antoni Valero-Cabré. CNRS UMR 7225 - ICM. France
450. Aishwarya Nair. University of Osnabruck. Germany
451. Lars Nyberg. Umeå University. Sweden
452. Tobias Rose. Max-Planck-Institute of Neurobiology. Germany
453. Tor Syvertsen. Norwegian University of Science and Technology. Norway
454. Enrique Sánchez González. Ciber-Seguridad GITS Informática - España. Spain
455. Joachim Funke. Departm. of Psychology, Heidelberg University. Germany
456. Jonathan Bradley. INSERM. France
457. Ricardo Cruz. swissvirtual. Switzerland
458. Salvatore Fara. Bernstein Center Freiburg. Germany
459. thierry Pozzo. INSERM. France
460. Carlos Moreno García. Farmacia de Jauja. Spain
461. Ursula Pia Jauch. University of Zurich. Switzerland
462. Veronica Egger. Regensburg University. Germany
463. Björn Friedrich. Leibniz Institute for Neurobiology. Germany
464. Sarah Jessen. MPI CBS. Germany
465. Michael Hörner. European Neuroscience Institute Göttingen. Germany
466. Laurent Lescaudron . Universty of Nantes. France
467. Giacomo Indiveri. University of Zurich and ETH Zurich. Switzerland
468. Mario Gomes-Pereira. INSERM. France
469. Tonia Rihs. University of Geneva. Switzerland
470. Bruno Sevennec. CNRS. France
471. Julien Lefèvre. Aix-Marseille Université. France
472. Matthew Nelson. INSERM. France
473. Eberhard von Goldammer. FH Dortmund. Germany
474. Constanze Lenschow. Bernstein Center for Computational Neuroscience. Germany
475. Jyi Han Seng. UCSI University. Malaysia
476. Roger Traub. IBM T.J. Watson Research Center. United States
477. Marc Fisher. Tulane University. United States
478. Fabio Meneghini. SISSA. Italy
479. Dilek DEMIR. TU Wien . Austria
480. Jacob Duijnhouwer. Radboud University Nijmegen. United States
481. Pavel Itskov. Champalimaud Centre for the Unknown. Portugal
482. Jacques Bourg. Champalimaud Centre for the Unknown. Portugal
483. Carolina Doran. Champalimaud Foundation & University of Bristol. Portugal
484. Rosa Cossart. INSERM. France
485. Maria Vicente. Champalimaud Centre for the Unknown. Portugal
486. Houman Safaai. Italian Institute of Technology. Italy
487. Kobi Rosenblum. University of Haifa. Israel
488. andrea burgalossi. University of Tübingen. Germany
489. Francisco Romero. Champalimaud Neuroscience Programme. Spain
490. Roberto Medina. Champalimaud Neuroscience Programme. Portugal
491. michel dulcire. CIRAD. France
492. Uwe Straehle. Karlsruhe Institute of Technology . Germany
493. Ignacio Ozcariz. Recol. Spain
494. Vasco Galhardo. Fac Medicina - Universidade do Porto. Portugal
495. Charles Gray. Montana State University. United States
496. Tiago Monteiro. Champalimaud Neuroscience Programme. Portugal
497. Jozsef Somogyi. retired. Hungary
498. Heinrich Betz. Max-Planck Institute. Germany
499. Jean-Pierre Mothet. CNRS. France
500. Sara Matias. Champalimaud Centre for the Unknown. Portugal
501. Andrew Latto. Latto. United States
502. Christian H. Uhlig. Universitätsklinikum Heidelberg. Germany
503. Sebastian Schwaab. FH Köln. Germany
504. Stephan Bohlhalter. University of Bern. Switzerland
505. Orly Reiner. Weizmann Institute of Science. Israel
506. Julien Colomb. Hu berlin. Germany
507. Manuel Riquelme. UTHSCSA. United States
508. Steffen Kandler. NERF. Belgium
509. Nader Nikbakht. SISSA. Italy
510. Stacy Dalton. JHU. United States
511. Gabriel McKinsey. University of California San Francisco. United States
512. José Ribas Fernandes. University of Victoria. Canada
513. Stephen Jackson. Univerity of Nottinghm. United Kingdom
514. Bjoern Andres. MPI Informatics. Germany
515. Matthias Munk. MPI. Germany
516. Vinzenz Schönfelder. SISSA | Scuola Internazionale Superiore di Studi Avanzati. Italy
517. Clara Ferreira. Oxford University. United Kingdom
518. Detlef Wegener. University of Bremen. Germany
519. Yves Moreau. University of Leuven. Belgium
520. Patrick Barland. Academia.edu. Spain
521. Miriam Klein-Flügge. UCL. United Kingdom
522. Zoltan Nadasdy. Eotvos Lorand University, NeuroTexas Institute, University of Texas. Hungary
523. Peter Bossaerts. University of Melbourne. Australia
524. Eduardo Dias-Ferreira. The Rockefeller University. United States
525. Linas Vilciauskas. New York University. United States
526. Merlin Lange. RIKEN. Japan
527. Gabriel Griesser. CIFOM-ET. Switzerland
528. Raphael Massarelli. University of Lyon. France
529. Wolfram Kawohl. University of Zurich. Switzerland
530. Arthur Leblois. CNRS. France
531. Béchir Jarraya. NeuroSpin. France
532. Günter Windau. Radboud University. Netherlands
533. Patrick Ruther. University of Freiburg. Germany
534. Carlos Gómez-Ariza. Universidad de Jaen. Spain
535. Paul Dean. Univeristy of Sheffield. United Kingdom
536. Boris Velichkovsky. Technical University Dresden, TUD. Germany
537. Rodrigo Abreu. Champalimaud Neuroscience Programme, Champalimaud Centre for the Unknown, Lisbon, Portugal. Portugal
538. Brigitte Chamak. U. Paris Descartes. France
539. Eric Everschor. Psychotherapeutische Praxis. Germany
540. Magor Lorincz. University of Szeged. Hungary
541. Bassam Atallah. Fundacao Champalimaud. Portugal
542. Steffen Scholpp. Karlsruhe Institute of Technology. Germany
543. Bahadir Kasap. Radboud University Nijmegen. Netherlands
544. Floris de Lange. Radboud University Nijmegen. Netherlands
545. Peter Redgrave. University of Sheffield. United Kingdom
546. Luis Carretie. Laboratorio de Neurociencia cognitiva y afectiva, Universidad Autónoma de Madrid. Spain
547. Hans Scherberger. University of Göttingen. Germany
548. Stephan van Gils. University of Twwente. Netherlands
549. Simone Lackner. Champalimaud Neuroscience Programme. Portugal
550. Tony Prescott. University of Sheffield. United Kingdom
551. Herbert Jaeger. Jacobs University Bremen. Germany
552. Luuk van de Rijt. Radboudumc, biophysics. Netherlands
553. Erwan Bezard. Institute of Neurodegenerative Diseases. France
554. Yael Amitai. Ben-Gurion University. Israel
555. Wim Crusio. Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique. France
556. Xurxo Mariño. University of A Coruña. Spain
557. Ilan Lampl. Weizmann Institut. Israel
558. Jean Petitot. CAMS-EHESS. France
559. Krishna Kishore. University of Michigan. United States
560. Martial Van der Linden. University of Geneva. Switzerland
561. Vincent Croset. University of Oxford. United Kingdom
562. Andrew Matus. FMI. Switzerland
563. Benedetto De Martino. Cambridge University . United Kingdom
564. Ana Amaral. Champalimaud Centre for the Unknown. Portugal
565. Inna Slutsky. Tel Aviv University. Israel
566. Madalena Fonseca. Champalimaud Centre for the Unknown. Portugal
567. John Anderson. University of Toronto. Canada
568. Yuri Alexandrov. Institute of psychology RAS. Russia
569. Lukasz Kaczmarek. Adam Mickiewicz University. Poland
570. Marco Schieppati. University of Pavia. Italy
571. Mike Hemberger. Max Planck Insitute for Brain Research. Germany
572. Stéphane Viollet. CNRS - Aix Marseile University. France
573. Franck RUFFIER. CNRS, Aix-Marseille University. France
574. Michel Imbert. Ecole normale supérieure. France
575. Jonathan Roiser. UCL. United Kingdom
576. David Higgins. Ecole Normale Superieure. France
577. Antonio Javier Pons Rivero. Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya. Spain
578. Ronald Welz. WDS Technologies SA. Switzerland
579. Pietro Vertechi. Champalimaud Neuroscience Programme. Portugal
580. Emma Cahill. University of Cambridge. United Kingdom
581. Tatiana Chernigovskaya. St. Petersburg State University. Russia
582. Elena Amenedo. University of Santiago de Compostela. Spain
583. David Holcman. Ecole Normale Superieure. France
584. Quentin Huys. University of Zurich and ETH Zurich. Switzerland
585. ronald oosting. utrecht university. Netherlands
586. Gabriel Madirolas. Instituto Cajal, CSIC. Spain
587. Dani Martí. ENS, INSERM. France
588. Wim Fias. Ghent University. Belgium
589. Joana Nogueira. Champalimaud Centre for the Unknown . Portugal
590. Valentin Wyart. Inserm / Ecole Normale Superieure. France
591. Michael Suchocki. individual. Canada
592. Mathieu Desroches. Inria. France
593. Etienne Herzog. CNRS. France
594. Hedi Young. Champalimaud Neuroscience Programme, Champalimaud Centre for the Unknown. Portugal
595. Nachiket Kashikar. University of Sussex. United Kingdom
596. Gordon Pipa. University Osnabrück. Germany
597. Kae Nakamura. Kansai Medical University. Japan
598. Javier Cudeiro. University of A Coruña. Spain
599. Paula Maria Fuertes. Psychology. Spain
600. Fabio Simoes de Souza. Institute of Molecular Medicine. Portugal
601. Hazem Toutounji. Institute of Cognitive Science, University of Osnabrück. Germany
602. Kenneth Miller. Columbia University. United States
603. Ben Seymour. University of Cambridge. United Kingdom
604. Renee Bleau. University of Glasgow. United Kingdom
605. Barry Dickson. HHMI. United States
606. Wolfgang Robinig. University of Graz. Austria
607. Foteini Vlachou. Instituto de História da Arte, Faculdade das Ciências Sociais e Humanas, Universidade Nova de Lisboa. Portugal
608. JP hugnot. inserm. France
609. David Gall. Université Libre de Bruxelles. Belgium
610. Herwig Baier. Max Planck Institute of Neurobiology. Germany