Alladi Ramakrishnan Hall

Uncovering functional correlates of structural organization in brain networks at multiple scales: From the worm to the human

Anand Pathak

Complex collective activity in seen in the brain at different scales, resulting from interactions between a large number of nonlinear elements. Depending on the scale one is considering, the elements could be individual neurons, or brain regions comprising thousands to millions of neurons. The elements are connected to each other via networks of chemical synapses or electrical gap junctions, allowing information to be transferred rapidly across the system - which enables the organism to respond appropriately to various sensory stimuli. The aim of the PhD thesis, for which this is a pre-synopsis submission talk, is to explicate different features of such networks that occur at various scales and to understand the mechanisms responsible for their genesis. For this purpose, three different brain networks have been investigated, viz., the somatic nervous system of the nematode Caenorhabditis elegans, the network of tracts connecting the various brain areas of the Macaque monkey and the human connectome.