Background
Sporns, Olaf was born on September 18, 1963 in Kiel, Germany.
Sporns, Olaf was born on September 18, 1963 in Kiel, Germany.
Doctor of Philosophy, Rockefeller University, 1990.
Doctor Sporns received his degree from Eberhard Karls University of Tübingen in Tübingen, West Germany before going to New York to study at the Rockefeller University under Gerald Edelman. After receiving his doctorate, he followed Edelman to the Neurosciences Institute in Louisiana Jolla, California. His focus is in the area of computational cognitive neuroscience.
His topics of study include functional integration and binding in the cerebral cortex.
Neural models of perception and action. Network structure and dynamics.
Applications of information theory to the brain. And embodied cognitive science using robotics.
He was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship in 2011 in the Natural Sciences category.
Brain complexity
One of the core areas of research being conducted by Doctor Sporns is in the area of complexity of the brain. One aspect in particular is how small world effects are seen in the neural connections which are decentralized in the brain. in collaboration with scientists across the world has revealed that there are pathways in the brain that are very well connected. This is insightful for understanding how the architecture of the brain may relate to schizophrenia, autism, and Alzheimer"s disease.
Doctor Sporns is also interested in understanding the relationship between statistical properties of neuronal populations and perceptual data.
To this end, he has run statistical analysis on movement patterns and input within simulations, videos, and robotic devices. Reward systems
Doctor Sporns also has a research interest in reward models of the brain utilizing robots.
The reward models have shown ways in which dopamine is onset by drug addiction. Other
Though not directly related to his core research, Personal Computer Magazine reported how the Cognitive Computational Neuroscience Laboratory is developing robots with human-like qualities in their ability to learn.
Member American Association for the Advancement of Science, Society for Neurosci.