Overview

The Computational Neurobiology and Imaging Center (CNIC) is a joint effort by the departments of Neuroscience and Neurobiology at the Mount Sinai School of Medicine encompassing cross-disciplinary collaborations with experimental and theoretical researchers from the Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences, New York University, New York University School of Medicine, Department of Applied Mathematics and Statistics, SUNY at Stony Brook, and the Department of Applied Mathematics, University of New South Wales, Australia.

Our goal is to advance research and training in mathematical, computational and modern imaging approaches to understanding the brain and its functions.

CNIC researchers study the relationships between neural function and structure at levels ranging from the molecular and cellular, through network organization of the brain.This involves the development of new computational and analytic tools for imaging and visualization of 3-D neural morphology, from the gross topologic characteristics of the dendritic arbor to the fine structure of spines and their synapses. Numerical simulations of neural mechanisms based on these structural data are compared with in-vivo and in-vitro electrophysiological recordings.

The group also develops new theoretical and analytic approaches to exploring the function of neural models of working memory. The goal of this analytic work is to combine biophysically realistic models and simulations with reduced mathematical models that capture essential dynamical behaviors while reproducing the functionally important features of experimental data.

Funding

The CNIC group is funded jointly by the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, the National Institute of Deafness and Other Communication Disorders, National Institute on Aging and National Institute of Mental Health.