Oxford Computational Neuroscience
Our work focuses on the nature of thought, consciousness and cognition. We examine brain structure and operation, specifically of neuronal and cortical mechanisms, to determine and model the underlying physiological process of perception, decision making and language.
We seek to use these insights to provide earlier detection and more effective treatment for patients affected by neurological disorders, such as Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, PTSD, dementia and depression. To bring our insights from the lab to the clinic, our team has developed a low-cost multimodal device and method for accurately diagnosing and quantitatively tracking the progression of (formerly undiagnosable) neurological states and disorders.
Our system is powered by a theoretical framework developed for processing multivariate data, specifically for the purposes of translating neurological signaling to logical data structures. This work, the Functional Code Unit (FCU) and the Brain Code (BC), was developed by Dr Newton Howard and has shown to be remarkably effective at discovering biomarkers for various diseases. The framework is also effective at mapping neural activity and may hold the key to extracting sentiment, intent and even language, directly from neurological signals.
Our team
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Newton Howard
Professor of Computational Neurosciences and Neurosurgery
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Tipu Aziz
Professor of Neurosurgery
Our external collaborators
Our external collaborators include: Louis Jehel (Professor of Psychiatry in the Centre Hospitalier Universitaire de Martinique and Head of Psychiatry and Psychotraumatology Department of Universite des Antilles et de la Guyane), Bruno Falissard (Professor in Public health/Biostatistics at South Paris University and Head of the Public Health Department of Paul Brousse Hospital), Amir Hussain (Professor of Cognitive Computing Science at the University of Sterling and founding Director of the Cognitive Signal-Image Processing and Control Systems Research Laboratory), Erik Cambria (Assistant Professor at NTU SCE), Soujanya Poria (Researcher at NTU Temasek Labs and PhD student at the University of Stirling) and Brian Brinkworth (Chairman of the Brain Sciences Foundation).
News
Researchers take major step forward in Artificial Intelligence
The long-standing dream of using Artificial Intelligence (AI) to build an artificial brain has taken a significant step forward, as a team led by Professor Newton Howard from the University of Oxford has successfully prototyped a nanoscale, AI-powered, artificial brain in the form factor of a high-bandwidth neural implant.
Newly discovered optical layer may help uncover causes of brain disorders
Newton Howard, Professor of Computational Neurosciences and Neurosurgery at the Nuffield Department of Surgical Sciences, has discovered a functional optical layer in the human neocortex. This new insight into how the brain works may lead to uncovering causes of brain disorders, such as Alzheimer's disease, Parkinson's disease and epilepsy.