For more information about this meeting, contact Jason Morton.
| Title: | Mapping the Connectome with Convex Algebraic Geometry |
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| Seminar: | Applied Algebra Seminar |
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| Speaker: | Lek-Heng Lim, University of Chicago |
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| Abstract Link: | http://galton.uchicago.edu/~lekheng/ |
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| Abstract: |
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| The latest image of the week (#32) in Scientific American is that of a human brain connectome -- an ambitious project to provide a complete map of neural connectivity and a recent source of excitement in the neuroscience community. Just as the human genome is a triumph of marrying technology (high throughput sequencers) with theory (dynamic programming for sequence alignment), the human connectome is a result of a similar union. The technology in question is that of diffusion magnetic resonance imaging (dMRI) while the requisite theory, we shall argue, comes from a combination of harmonic analysis and algebraic geometry.
The two main mathematical problems are (i) reconstructing a homogeneous polynomial representing a real-valued function on a sphere from dMRI data; and (ii) analyzing the homogeneous polynomial via a decomosition into a sum of powers of linear forms. We will survey the algebraic geometry associated with (ii) and discuss a technique that combines (i) and (ii) for mapping neural fibers.
This is joint work with T. Schultz of MPI Tubingen. |
Room Reservation Information
| Room Number: | MB106 |
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| Date: | 03 / 14 / 2012 |
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| Time: | 02:30pm - 03:20pm |
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