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Summary:
Professor Armen Stepanyants came to Northeastern University in the fall of 2004 from the Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory on Long Island, NY. That same year he received the Mentor Quantitative Career Award from the National Institutes of Health for the analysis of synaptic connectivity in the cerebral cortex.
Paradigms in physics are constantly evolving with problems involving large scale biological networks now moving into focus. In particular, neural networks are receiving increased attention from the experimental and theoretical physics communities.
Here at Northeastern, theoretical analysis of biological neural networks is the primary research interest of Professor Stepanyants' group. This group is utilizing computational and theoretical methods of statistical physics to understand the basic principles governing the synaptic circuits of the human cerebral cortex.
To date little is known about the organization principles and function of the neural networks in the cerebral cortex. Some very fundamental questions still remain unanswered. Among these are: how do neurons find appropriate synaptic targets in the course of development and form functional circuits? How do these circuits change during learning and memory formation? What are the driving forces behind the design and the evolution of the brain? Answers to these questions are hindered by the complexity and large numbers of neurons that form highly interconnected cortical circuits and will undoubtedly lead to new theories of statistical physics and new discoveries.
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