[institut] SCL Seminar: Bosiljka Tadic, Friday, 20 October, 14:00

[Marija Mitrovic Dankulov]

Dear colleagues,

You are cordially invited to the SCL seminar of the Center for the Study 
of Complex Systems, which will be held on Friday, 20 October 2017 at 
14:00 in the library reading room “Dr. Dragan Popović" of the Institute 
of Physics Belgrade. The talk entitled

Social brain---manifestation of a high-dimensional structure

will be given by Bosiljka Tadić (Department of Theoretical Physics, 
Jožef Stefan Institute, Ljubljana, Slovenia). Abstract of the talk:

We are our brains (Είμαστε ο εγκέφαλός μας)---the idea originating from 
Hippocrates  becomes increasingly recognized in the era of massive brain 
imaging and modern science techniques of the data analysis.  In recent 
years, the research activity on brain imaging data considerably 
increased our knowledge about the fascinating brain functional 
capabilities, recognizing the brain areas responsible for different 
activities, information processing, emotions, a comprehension of 
languages, time, space, numbers, as well as the origin of various 
diseases.  In this context, mapping the imaging data to suitable 
networks and the use of objective mathematical techniques of graphs 
theory has provided a significant leap in contemporary science of the 
brain. Furthermore, the application of Statistical physics to research 
brain as a complex dynamical system has a long  tradition. The problem 
of the social brain considers the social impact on the brain functions 
and the neuronal basis of social conduct of individuals.  Unlike the 
single brain imaging, such experiments are rare; they concern 
simultaneous recordings of a group of people during a particular 
communication, and the design of an experiment is based on a valid 
research hypothesis in currently developing science of social neurology 
and social psychology. The additional complexity of the social brain 
comes from the fact that it involves areas of the brain hat communicate 
in a different way, depending on the type of inputs and their precise 
content (emotional and cognitive).

In this Seminar, based on our recent work [1], we will present the main 
concepts and results of our analysis of a set of EEG empirical data 
recorded in a group of people during spoken communications. Mapping the 
aggregate data on multi-brain networks, we use methods of algebraic 
topology of graphs to investigate functional brain connections  that 
underly the social brain of the participants. These mathematical 
techniques identify the basic geometric descriptors such as triangles, 
tetrahedrons and cliques of higher orders, as well as the ways in which 
they assemble to form the complex multi-brain graph structure.  
Interestingly, our analysis reveals how the occurrence of these higher 
organized geometries of inter-brain networks correlates with the 
listener's self-reported quality of coordination with the  speakers. 
Moreover, these methods can detect shifts in the brain activity pattern 
arising from the changes of the subject or other impact on the 
individual.

[1] B. Tadić, M. Andjelković, B. M. Boškoska, Z. Levnajić,   Algebraic 
topology of multi-brain connectivity networks reveals dissimilarity in 
functional brain patterns during spoken communications, PLOS one 11, 
e0166787 (2016)

Best regards,
Mrarija Mitrovic Dankulov

-- 
Marija Mitrovic Dankulov
E-mail: mitrovic at ipb.ac.rs

Phone: +381 11 3713068
Fax: +381 11 3162190

Scientific Computing Laboratory
Institute of Physics Belgrade
Pregrevica 118, 11080 Belgrade, Serbia