Prof. Danilo Bzdok has garnered plenty of attention since joining Biomedical Engineering as an Associate Professor in November 2019, including ample media coverage and launching a new course for Fall 2020 (BMDE 520 Machine Learning for Biomedical Data).
We sat down with Prof. Bzdok to learn more about his research and what attracted him to 污污草莓视频 BME:
Q: Why did you choose to join 污污草莓视频 University?
Montreal and 污污草莓视频 are rapidly becoming an international powerhouse at the intersection of ambitious computational modeling, such as state-of-the-art machine learning, and mining of big biomedical datasets, such as the UK Biobank cohort. Critical mass is aggregating over the very recent years, which promises a diversity of exciting collaborations and unprecedented research endeavors. The thrust of this sea change is also signaled by the awarding聽of two CFREF mega grants in the Montreal area 鈥� precisely, one algorithmic, in deep learning, and one topical, in neuroscience.
Q: Why Biomedical Engineering?
I completed my training as an MD in 2012, and I specialized in both neuroscience and quantitative analytics. As such, I wear two hats 鈥� one related to biomedical research topics and one related to technical-engineering tools. I am forming my second lab, building on experience from my previous lab in Germany, with one foot in research object and one foot in the research method, with equal emphasis. This dual-priority is already in the name of the department: Biomedical鈥� Engineering.
Q: What is your research focus? (If you had to explain it your non-scientist uncle)
Research activities in my team place a focus on the nature of what makes our brain and our thinking human, compared to other animals, and its relation to the wider society. For instance, from an anthropological perspective, humans are believed to maintain and entertain the most complicated social networks with peers compared to any other species on the planet. This is why I have studied the brain basis of mental processes underpinning advanced social interplay in humans for about 10 years now. As another consequence of this specific research focus, we try to take on research challenges on the most advanced parts of the brain. That is, those regions of the central nervous system that have expanded most in recent evolution, which finish developing latest in an individual鈥檚 life trajectory, and which are thought to support the most advanced forms of neural computations, such as also language capacity and humans' unique capability to project themselves into the minds of other people, or anticipate the future for the purpose of adjusting behavior in the present.
Q: What are the practical implications of your research?
Most of my research is basic science, which can also lay foundations for progress towards a future of precision medicine with treatment interventions tailored to single individuals. Brain diseases are mostly conceptualized and examined as deviations from normalcy or normativity, promising insight into intact function through the lens of dysfunction. As one practically relevant topic, we have engaged in a new line of research centered on brain manifestations of social isolation, since the COVID-19 pandemic. In the context of the above, it pertains to the question of the brain consequences of taking social stimulation away during a part of one鈥檚 lifetime, which has made the human brain and human species what it has become and is now in evolutionary time. In 40,000 individuals 鈥� a 50x scale increase over existing neuroscience research on loneliness and social isolation 鈥� we found that advanced neural systems harbor signatures linked to chronic social isolation. We speculate that, in times of social deprivation, these brain circuits may subserve reminiscence of past social events or imagination of hypothetical social interactions to fill the social void. Hopefully, these population-scale results from the largest existing biomedical dataset, available today, serve as an example that neuroscience can potentially inform decision making in the current public-health crisis.
Q: What is your 鈥榟oly grail鈥�?
The question that is at the core of my research activity is: 鈥淲hat are the neurocomputational principles that enable human-defining thought?鈥�
Q: What is the most challenging part of your research?
The commitment to attack drastically interdisciplinary interfaces 鈥� trying to span from cognitive science to neurobiology to brain health to designing new computational modeling tools is a fantastic opportunity and a fantastic challenge at the same time. It is equally a challenge and an opportunity to work closely with diverse people with diverging educational background, view points, and value systems. Our traditional educational pathways are not (yet) set up to nurture such trans-disciplinary capacities, from my experience.
Q: How is the 污污草莓视频 experience helping you to pursue your goals?
My research style naturally takes a spider-in-the-web-type-of form. In an ideal project, I try to incorporate expertise and experience from very applied and very technical collaborators. As such, Montreal and 污污草莓视频 are a particular attractive pool of collaborators as they are both known for an abundance excellent investigators. I am lucky to be developing such inter-disciplinary collaborations with an array of investigators here.
Q: What is the most rewarding part of your job?
To be actively engaged in an international community that revolves around shared compounded interests.
Q: Why would you recommend students or other faculty to join BME?
As science is making strides towards a future of always more powerful machine learning algorithms, and general artificial intelligence, it will be unavoidable to purpose-design these emerging technologies for dedicated application domains. Health and biomedicine is a high-content, high-stakes, high-consequence domain that is susceptible to profit from machine learning technologies in ways that are unique to this application domain. By construction, BME is naturally poised to propel the impending integration of pattern-learning strategies in health research efforts and health care practices.
Q: If you could tell the world one thing about 污污草莓视频 BME, what would it be?
It is the first biomedical engineering department in Canada, and situated at the heart of 污污草莓视频鈥檚 Faculty of Medicine 鈥� the largest Faculty of Medicine in the country 鈥� in the beautiful city of Montreal.
Media Coverage
One of Prof. Bzdok鈥檚 latest papers, appearing in , has received ample media coverage. This research explores聽the wide-ranging, negative consequences that social isolation has on our psychological well-being and physical health --聽a highly relevant topic during the COVID-19 pandemic.
污污草莓视频 Newsroom
The neurobiology of social distance
La neurobiologie de la distance sociale
CTV News
The Globe and聽Mail
CBC Listen
Radio Canada聽
Le Devoir
Other Media
New Course for Fall 2020: BMDE 520 Machine Learning for Biomedical Data
This Fall, Prof. Bzdok will teach a new theoretical and practical course in machine learning applied to the expanding richness of biomedical data (see the course outline and course listing). The course now counts as a Core Quantitative Course for Master's and Ph.D. students in the BBME program.