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ePaper created 2013-08-02, 08:40:53 | version 1.25.20
Research in Jülich 2|201310 Healthy Chaos in the Head Developing new treatment options is also the moti- vation for another researcher in the ‘ground crew’ of the Human Brain Project. Prof. Peter Tass, a mathematician, physicist, and medical scientist, uses knowledge from all of these disciplines to gain a better understanding of the brain, thus bridging the gap between the fundamentals of neuroscience and practical applications in the form of treatment. The director at the Institute of Neuroscience and Medicine (INM) is also interested in the communica- tion between neurons – but he studies them in sum instead of in isolation, and models them by means of mathematical algorithms. With the help of these models, he has developed a method that can cure disturbances in the communication between neu- rons, which occur in Parkinson’s and tinnitus, for example. In these conditions, neurons send infor- mation in the form of electric signals simultaneous- ly instead of one after the other, as continuous fire, so to speak. This produces the tremor in Parkin- son’s, and the continuous tone typical of tinnitus. Tass interrupts the synchronous signals using specific electrical stimuli – with an electrode in the brain in the case of Parkinson’s and by acoustic sig- nals for tinnitus. These follow a certain pattern re- ferred to as Coordinated Reset (CR), a physical- mathematical algorithm developed by Tass, who tailors the timing of the stimuli to each individual patient. “We disturb the pathological synchroniza- tion of the neurons with electrical or acoustic im- pulses in a constructive manner”, explains Tass, “which means that we force the neurons to go back to their previous ‘healthy chaos’. This allows us to cure the symptoms of these conditions, such as movement disorders or the continuous ringing noise or at least alleviate them.” This treatment for tinnitus patients is already of- fered at many doctors’ surgeries. The brain pace- maker for Parkinson’s patients will be used next year in trials with patients. This could help improve the existing brain pacemaker, which merely sup- presses the neural disorder. “Our innovation from Jülich is sustainable, because the brain actually learns. It memorizes the mechanism of forced de- synchronization and imitates it,” says Peter Tass. “This is why the patients’ motor skills remain im- proved even after the actual stimulation phase.” This means a glimmer of hope for those with Parkin- son’s, and shows that human brain modelling is not merely an end in itself but will, in the long term, make a contribution to enabling us to provide effec- tive treatments for neurodegenerative diseases. :: EU Flagship ‘Human Brain Project’ Europe is pooling its scientific expertise to reach an ambitious goal: within no more than ten years, it is planned to simulate the entire human brain, from the molecular level to the interaction of entire brain regions, on a supercomputer of the future. The Human Brain Project is one of two large-scale European research projects to receive funding from the European Union under its FET Flagship programme. The Human Brain Project brings together researchers from more than 80 scientific institutions in 23 countries. Jülich scientists from the Institute of Neuroscience and Medicine (INM), the Jülich Supercomputing Centre (JSC), and the Institute for Advanced Simulation (IAS) are sought-after experts for various Flagship research projects. This is also true for these scientists as members of the Jülich Aachen Research Alliance (JARA) of Forschungszen- trum Jülich and RWTH Aachen University, particularly in the JARA-BRAIN and JARA-High-Performance Computing sections. They are contributing their know-how on the structure and function of the brain as well as on super- computing and simulation techniques. Experts from JSC are working with cooperation partners on the development of new computers of the exaflop generation. Peter Tass, mathematician, physicist, and medical scientist Institute HBP