Göttinger Graduiertenzentrum für Neurowissenschaften, Biophysik und Molekulare Biowissenschaften

Wibral, Michael. Prof. Dr.


  • Since 08/2018: Professor for Data-driven Analysis of Biological Networks. Campus Institute for Dynamics of Biological Networks, Department of Data-driven Analysis of Biological Networks
  • 03/2012 – 07/2018: Professor for Magnetoencephalography (W2). Brain Imaging Center, Goethe University, Frankfurt
  • 10/1998 – 03/2002: Semiconductor Process Engineer, Sunways AG, Konstanz



Major Research Interests

I am a physicist working on solving neuroscience puzzles using information theoretic methods. I am fascinated by information processing in the neocortex where it seems that one highly conserved circuit scheme can support an enormous variety of functions like signal detection, obejct perception, various forms of short and long term memory, executive functions and motor control. To understand how one circuit (with small variations perhaps) can support all these apparently different functions we have to understand their hidden commonalities, the underlying common algorithm that operates on neural data (which fortunately have the unified format of spiking neural activity).

The language describing such a common algorithm must almost necessarily be more abstract than that used for talking about idividual functions like object detection in vision, or remembering an episode from the orgamism's past. I think that information theory provides the necessary level of abstraction to tackle the puzzle of cortical circuit function.

In particular, the framework of local information dynamics developed by Lizier is a promising approach here. Local information dynamics provides the tools to measure the essential component operations on information.
These component operations are the storage, transfer and modification of information. Local information dynamics in principle allows to measure these components locally in space and time while a computation unfolds.

We have successfully used measures of local information dynamics such as local active information storage and transfer to test predictive coding theories, to investigate altered information processing in schizophrenia and autism, and to obtain a better understanding of the information processing changes underlying the loss of consciousness in anesthesia.

At present, my group works on more advanced information measures that are tailored to detect predictive processing in an hypothesis-free way from neural data, on novel types of cortex-inspired deep neural networks with local information theoretic goal functions, and on the development and application of partial information decomposition to neural data.

Homepage Department/Research Group

http://www.uni-goettingen.de/de/datengetriebene+analyse+biologischer+netzwerke+%28wibral%29/603144.html

Homepage at the CRC1193

https://crc1193.de/en/member/wibral


Selected Recent Publications


  • Novelli L, Wollstadt P, Mediano P, Wibral M, Lizier JT (2019) Large-scale directed network inference with multivariate transfer entropy and hierarchical statistical testing. Netw Neurosci 3(3):827−847.

  • Brodski-Guerniero A, Naumer MJ, Moliadze V, Chan J, Althen H, Ferreira-Santos F, Lizier JT, Schlitt S, Kitzerow J, Schütz M, Langer A, Kaiser J, Freitag CM, Wibral M (2018) Predictable information in neural signals during resting state is reduced in autism spectrum disorder. Hum Brain Mapp 39(8):3227−3240.

  • Wibral M, Priesemann V, Kay JW, Lizier JT, Phillips WA (2017) Partial information decomposition as a unified approach to the specification of neural goal functions. Brain Cogn 112:25-38.

  • Brodski A, Paasch GF, Helbling S, Wibral M (2015) The Faces of Predictive Coding. J Neurosci 35(24):8997-9006.

  • Gómez C, Lizier JT, Schaum M, Wollstadt P, Grützner C, Uhlhaas P, Freitag CM, Schlitt S, Bölte S, Hornero R, Wibral M (2014) Reduced predictable information in brain signals in autism spectrum disorder. Front Neuroinform 8:9. eCollection 2014

  • Vicente R*, Wibral M*, Lindner M, Pipa G (2011) Transfer entropy--a model-free measure of effective connectivity for the neurosciences. J Comput Neurosci 30(1):45-67. *equal contribution

  • Grützner C, Uhlhaas PJ, Genc E, Kohler A, Singer W, Wibral M (2010) Neuroelectromagnetic correlates of perceptual closure processes. J Neurosci 30(24):8342-52.



https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=XjZ0RzMAAAAJ&hl=en