Zbigniew R. Struzik
Speaker of Workshop 4
Will talk about: Untangling the informational network of the brain-wide web
Zbigniew R. Struzik received a Master of Science in Engineering degree intechnical physics from the Warsaw University of Technology, Poland, in 1986, and a Doctor degree from the faculty of Mathematics, Computer Science, Physics andAstronomy at the University of Amsterdam, the Netherlands, in 1996. From 1997 to2003, he worked at the Centre for Mathematics and Computer Science (CWI),Amsterdam, and since 2003 at the University of Tokyo, Japan, where he is currently affiliated. From 2012, his main position has been at RIKEN Brain Science Institutein Wakoshi, Japan.His scientific work contributed to the amalgamation of (multi-)fractal analysis,wavelet analysis and time series data mining. His current research interests include applications of information science and statistical physics in life sciences,complexity and emergence, time series processing and mining, and, recently,analytic approaches to elucidating the nature of creative processes in art and science, in particular in neuroscience. He is on the editorial board of the FractalsJournal, the Open Medical Informatics Journal, Frontiers in Fractal Physiology,Frontiers in Computational Physiology and Medicine, Frontiers in HumanNeuroscience and International Journal of Statistical Mechanics. He has co-authored over one hundred papers.
The brain is perhaps the most profound example of a biological system of inherentcomplexity. A system where complexity is attained from its adaptive functionalresponse to environmental information, through its hierarchical and modularorganisation and through the non-linear forms of inter- and intra-modularinteractions. Interactions, which process information, since the brain is - arguably -the most advanced information processor known.I will give an introduction to the concept of the methodology of information flowanalysis - transfer entropy, discuss the state of the art and consider the possiblefuture (or futuristic) prospects that transfer entropy gives for the exploration offunctional and topological connectivity and information flow in the brain.In particular, I will confront the possibility of applications of transfer entropy to revealthe modular and multiscale organisation of the brain's information flow.
