Gustavo Deco is Research Professor at ICREA and Professor (Catedrático) at the Pompeu Fabra University where he leads the Computational Neuroscience group. He is Director of the Center of Brain and Cognition (UPF). In 1987 he received his PhD in Physics for his thesis on Relativistic Atomic Collisions. In 1987, he was a postdoc at the University of Bordeaux in France. From 1988 to 1990, he was postdoc of the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation at the University of Giessen in Germany. From 1990 to 2003, he lead the Computational Neuroscience Group at Siemens Corporate Research Center in Munich, Germany. He obtained in 1997 his Habilitation (maximal academical degree in Germany) in Computer Science (Dr. rer. nat. habil.) at the Technical University of Munich for his thesis on Neural Learning. In 2001, he received his PhD in Psychology at the Ludwig-Maximilians-University of Munich. He was awarded an ERC Advanced Grant and recently with a second ERC Synergy.
Research interests
Perceptions, memories, emotions, and everything that makes us human, demand the flexible integration of information represented and computed in a distributed manner. Normal brain functions require the integration of functionally specialized but widely distributed brain areas. The main aim of my research is to elucidate precisely the computational principles underlying higher brain functions and their breakdown in brain diseases. My research allows us to comprehend the mechanisms underlying brain functions by complementing structural and activation based analyses with dynamics. We integrate different levels of experimental investigation in cognitive neuroscience (from the operation of single neurons and neuroanatomy, neurophysiology, neuroimaging and neuropsychology to behaviour) via a unifying theoretical framework that captures the neural dynamics inherent in the computation of cognitive processes.
Selected publications
Martínez-Molina N, Escrichs A, Sanz-Perl Y, Sihvonen AJ, Särkämö T, Kringelbach ML, Deco G 2024, '- The evolution of whole-brain turbulent dynamics during recovery from traumatic brain injury', Network neuroscience, 8 - 1 - 158 - 177 - .
- Kringelbach ML Deco G, 2024 'Current opinion in behavioral sciences', 57 - - -
- Dagnino P, Escrichs A, López-González A, Gosseries O, Annen J, Perl Y, Kringelbach ML, Laureys S & Deco G 2024, 'Re-awakening the brain: Forcing transitions in disorders of consciousness by external in silico perturbation', Plos computational biology, 20 - 5 - - .
- Ibanez A Kringelbach ML Deco G, 2024 'Trends in cognitive sciences', 28 - 4 - 319 - 338
- Idesis S, Geli S, Faskowitz J, Vohryzek J, Perl YS, Pieper F, Galindo-Leon E, Engel AK, Deco G 2024, 'Functional hierarchies in brain dynamics characterized by signal reversibility in ferret cortex', Plos computational biology, 20 - 1 - - - e1011818.
- Kringelbach ML Vuust P Deco G, 2024 'Neuron', 112 - 9 - 1392 - 1396 -
- Kringelbach ML, Perl YS & Deco G 2024, 'The Thermodynamics of Mind', Trends in cognitive sciences, 28 - 6 - 568 - 581.
- Patow G, Martin I, Perl YS, Kringelbach ML & Deco G 2024, 'Whole-brain modelling: an essential tool for understanding brain dynamics', Nature reviews methods primers, 4 - 1 -53.
- Idesis S, Allegra M, Vohryzek J, Perl YS, Metcalf N, Griffis JC, Corbetta M, Shulman GL & Deco G 2024, 'Generative whole-brain dynamics models from healthy subjects predict functional alterations in stroke at the level of individual patients', Brain communications, 6 -4 -fcae237.
Selected research activities
Elected member of the Academia Europaea. Publications of 32 papers in high impact journals during 2024 and 10 more accepted.