Dr. Helmstaedter is a neuroscientist dedicated to mapping connectomes: the complex networks of nerve cells in the brain. A medical doctor and physicist by training, Dr. Helmstaedter completed his doctoral thesis with Nobel Laureate Bert Sakmann at the Max Planck Institute in Heidelberg, Germany. During his postdoctoral work, together with Winfried Denk and Kevin Briggman, he developed methods to map nerve cell networks using electron microscopes and computer analysis tools. In August 2014, he joined the Max Planck Institute for Brain Research in Frankfurt as director of the new Department of Connectomics. Before this, he headed the Structure of Neocortical Circuits Group at the Max Planck Institute of Neurobiology in Munich, where he worked to understand the computations in the sensory cortex. Dr. Helmstaedter has pioneered crowd sourcing for connectomics, engaging several hundred undergraduates to work together to analyze neuronal networks. He is collaborating with game developers to build mobile and browser games, aiming at motivating thousands of curious minds to solve the task of reconstructing the powerful and fascinating neuronal networks of the brain online.
Affiliation
Max Planck Institute for Brain Research
Frankfurt, Germany