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Prof. Dr. rer. nat. habil. Sonja Grün

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Prof. Dr. rer. nat. habil. Sonja Grün

Sektionssprecherin "Computational Neuroscience"

Institute of Neuroscience and Medicine (INM-6) &
Institute for Advanced Simulation (IAS-6) &
JARA Brain Institute I (INM-10)
Forschungszentrum Jülich
52425 Jülich
Germany
Tel: +49-2461-619302
Fax: +49-2461-619460
Email: s.gruen@fz-juelich.de
Homepage: www.csn.fz-juelich.de

Curriculum Vitae

Academic Background

1984-1991 Study of Physics and Psychology at the Eberhard-Karls University, Tübingen, Germany
1991-1995 Research Assistant, Weizmann Institute of Science, Rehovot, Israel and Inst. for Neuroinformatics, Ruhr-University Bochum, Germany
1996 Dr. rer. nat. obtained from the Faculty of Astronomy and Physics at the Ruhr-University, Bochum, Germany. Ph.D. thesis: ‘Unitary Joint-Events in Multiple-Neuron Spiking Activity: Detection, Significance, and Interpretation’. Supervisors: Prof. A. Aertsen and Prof. C. von der Malsburg
1995-1997 Postdoc (Dept. of Physiology, Hebrew University Jerusalem, Israel;
Prof. Abeles)
1998-2002 Senior Fellow (Max-Planck-Institut für Hirnforschung, Frankfurt;
Prof. Singer)
2003 Habilitation, Albert-Ludwigs-University Freiburg
2002-2006 Forschungsdozentin’ (equiv. junior professor) andAssistant-Professor for Neuroinformatics/ Theoretical Neuroscience, Freie University, Berlin, Germany
2006-2011 Unit- und Team-Leader, RIKEN Brain Science Institute, Wako-City, Japan
Since 2011 Professor (full) for Theoretical Systems Neurobiology, RWTH Aachen, Germany
2011- 2018 Vice director of Institute of Neuroscience and Medicine (INM-6), Jülich Research Center
Since 10/2018 Director of Institute of Neuroscience and Medicine (INM-6 and INM-10), Jülich Research Center


Other academic functions

Since 2017 Member of the steering committee ‘Research Data Management’ of the Jülich Research Center
Since 2017 Scientific Coordinator together with Dr. Thomas Brochier of the International Associated Laboratory (LIA) “Vision for Action” between CNRS and Aix-Marseille Univ., Marseille, France and Research Centre Jülich, Germany
Since 2015 Member of Advisory Board of the Bernstein Center for Computational Neuroscience, Berlin
2014-2016 Guest Professor, Osaka University, Japan
Since 2013 Board member of the Simulation Lab Neuroscience, Jülich Research Center
2012 Member of the INCF workgroup on Method Validation
Since 9/2011 Visiting Scientist, RIKEN Brain Science Institute, Wako-City, Japan
2008-2010 Search committee, RIKEN Brain Science Institute, Wako-Shi, Japan
2009-2010 Academic council, RIKEN Brain Science Institute, Wako-Shi, Japan


Awards, Honors and Grants (selection)

Since 10/2018 DFG Research Training Group “MultiSenses-MultiScales”RTG 2416 with Marc Spehr et al.
2018-2020   WP leader Human Brain Project, EU Grant 785907
Since 1/2017 Scientific Coordinator together with Dr. Thomas Brochier of the International Associated Laboratory (LIA) “Vision for Action” between CNRS and Aix-Marseille Univ., Marseille, France and Research Centre Jülich, Germany
Since 2016 DFG Priority Program SPP 1665 „Causal Mechanisms of Mesoscopic Activity Patterns in Categorization of Auditory Discrimination“ and “Causative Mechanisms of Mesoscopic Activity Patterns in Auditory Category Discrimination”, with F. W. Ohl and B. Schmidt)
10/2016-3/2018 WP leader “Tools and Curation for Integrated Parallelized Analysis of Activity Data” in the Human Brain Project, EU Grant 720270 (HBP)
4/2016-3/2018 WP leader “Linking model activity and function to experimental data” in the Human Brain Project, EU Grant 720270 (HBP)
4/2016-3/2018 Co-Chair of Co-Design Project CDP4 “Sensorimotor Integration” in the Human Brain Project, EU Grant 720270 (HBP)
10/2013-3/2015 WP leader “Tools for analysis of functional data” in the Human Brain Project, EU Grant 604102 (HBP)
2013-2016 Clinical Research Group KFO 219, TP12 “Characterization of the relation of LFPs and spiking activity in Nucleus subthalamicus in Morbus Parkinson patients”, with M. Denker (Jülich) and L. Timmermann (Univ. Clinics Cologne)
2012-2012 German-Japanese Joint Computational Neuroscience Program, ‘Impact of top-down influence on visual processing during free viewing: multi-scale analysis of multi-area massively parallel recordings of the visual pathway’, together with H Tamura, Osaka Univ. and Shigeru Shinomoto, Kyoto Univ., Japan (BMBF, 01GQ1114) 2004    Founding member of the Bernstein Center for Computational Neuroscience Berlin, Germany
2002-2006 ’Forschungsdozentur’ for Neuroinformatics/Theoretical Neuroscience awarded for 5 years by the Stifterverband für die Deutsche Wissenschaft

Research Interests

Higher brain functions are attributed to the cortex, a brain structure composed of a large number of neurons which are highly interconnected. A potential mechanism for neuronal information processing is the coordinated activity of populations of neurons. To approach this level of processing and to study the spatial and temporal scales of neuronal interaction requires to observe large portions of the network simultaneously. The group of Sonja Grün in the Institute for Computational and Systems Neuroscience focuses on the development of analysis strategies and tools that detect the concerted activity in electrophysiological signals (such as massively parallel spike trains and local field potential recordings), to explore the relevance of the observed activity for behavior and cognition. Our research goal is to gain an understanding of the relevant spatio-temporal scale(s) at which the cortex effectively interacts, and to contribute to uncovering of its function. This requires:

Data Science:
⦁    Development of statistical data analysis tools for data from awake behaving animals
⦁    Data analysis to extract and condense the relevant characteristics of the system
⦁    Intense interaction with experimenters, who provide us their experimental data and valuable insights from the experimental perspective

Neuroinformatics:
⦁    Development and hosting open source data analysis software
⦁    Curation of data with extensive metadata
⦁    Concepts and implementation of collaborative, reproducible digital workflows

Integrative loop:
⦁    Closing the loop between neural network models and experimental data
⦁    Interpretation of the system dynamics by construction of theoretical (biophysical and functional) models
 

Selected Publications:

For full list of publications, see http://www.fz-juelich.de/inm/inm-6/EN/UeberUns/publications/publication_...

  • Brochier T., Zehl L., Hao Y., Duret M., Sprenger J., Denker M., Grün S., Riehle A. (2018) Massively parallel recordings in macaque motor cortex during an instructed delayed reach-to-grasp task. (Data publication) Scientific Data 5:180055DOI:10.1038/sdata.2018.55. Data available at https://web.gin.g-node.org/INT/multielectrode_grasp
  • Denker M., Zehl L., Kilavik BE., Diesmann M., Brochier T., Riehle A., Grün S. (2018) LFP beta amplitude is linked to mesoscopic spatio-temporal phase patterns. Scientific Reports 8:5200. DOI:10.1038/s41598-018-22990-7
  • Ito J., Yamane Y., Suzuki M., Maldonado P., Fujita I., Tamura H., Grün S. (2017). Switch from ambient to focal processing mode explains the dynamics of free viewing eye movements. Scientific Reports 7. DOI: 10.1038/s41598-017-01076-w.
  • Kass RE., Amari S., Arai K., Brown EN., Diekman CO., Diesmann M., Doiron B., Eden U., Fairhall A., Fiddyment GM., Fukai T., Grün S., Harrison MT., Helias M., Nakahara H., Teramae J., Thomas PJ., Reimers M., Rodu J., Rotstein HG., Shea-Brown E., Shimazaki H., Shinomoto S., Yu BM., Kramer MA. (2018). Computational neuroscience: Mathematical and Statistical Perspectives. Annual Review of Statistics and Its Application 5:183-214. DOI: 10.1146/annurev-statistics-041715-033733.
  • Quaglio P., Yegenoglu A., Torre E., Endres DM., Grün S. (2017). Detection and evaluation of spatio-temporal spike patterns in massively parallel spike train data with spade. Frontiers in Computational Neuroscience 11:41. DOI: 10.3389/fncom.2017.00041.
  • Torre E., Quaglio P., Denker M., Brochier T., Riehle A., Grün S. (2016) Synchronous spike patterns in Macaque motor cortex during an instructed-delay reach-to-grasp task. J Neurosci 36(32): 8329-8340.