Sean Hill (scientist)

Last updated
Sean Hill
Born
Sean Lewis Hill

United States
NationalityAmerican, Swiss
Alma mater Hampshire College, University of Lausanne
Known forLarge-scale computer models of brain circuits, simulations of different brain states (wakefulness, sleep, anesthesia, etc.), neuroinformatics, mental health, learning health systems
Title Professor
Scientific career
Fields Neuroscience, Neuroinformatics, Computational Neuroscience
Institutions University of Toronto, Centre for Addiction and Mental Health, International Neuroinformatics Coordinating Facility, Karolinska Institutet, École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne, IBM Research, University of Wisconsin–Madison, The Neurosciences Institute, Senscience

Sean Lewis Hill is an American neuroscientist, Professor at the University of Toronto Faculty of Medicine, and co-founder and CEO of Senscience, an AI startup dedicated to transforming science with open data. [1] He was previously the Inaugural Scientific Director of the Krembil Centre for Neuroinformatics [2] in Toronto, Canada. Until December 2024, he also served as co-director of the Blue Brain Project at the École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne located on the Campus Biotech in Geneva, Switzerland. [3] Hill is known for the development of large-scale computational models of brain circuitry, neuroinformatics, and innovation in AI for mental health. [4] [5] [6]

Contents

Early life and education

Hill was born in New Jersey, raised in Warren, Maine, and attended Camden-Rockport High School. He graduated from Hampshire College with a degree in Computational Neuroscience and obtained his PhD from the University of Lausanne, Switzerland.

Career

After working with Nobel prize winner Gerald Edelman and Giulio Tononi at The Neurosciences Institute in San Diego, Hill continued his postdoctoral research at the University of Wisconsin–Madison. In 2006, Hill joined the Computational Biology group at the IBM Thomas J. Watson Research Center as Project Manager for Computational Neuroscience on the Blue Brain Project from 2006 to 2008. [7] He subsequently joined the EPFL Blue Brain team. Hill served as the executive director of the International Neuroinformatics Coordinating Facility from 2011 to 2013 and as its Scientific Director from 2013 to 2016. He developed the core strategy and design of the neuroinformatics infrastructure of the EU Human Brain Project, led its development during its start-up phase, [8] and in 2014 was co-director of the project. [9]

In September 2017, Hill was named the inaugural Director of the Krembil Centre for Neuroinformatics at the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health in Toronto, Canada. The center applies machine learning and artificial intelligence techniques, as well as multi-scale modeling of the brain to understand mental health disorders. [10] One initiative established under his tenure is the BrainHealth Databank, a data-driven learning health system integrating AI and computational models with mental health clinics. [11]

Hill’s work at KCNI involved addressing questions about mental illnesses such as depression. He emphasizes the need for a multi-level biological understanding of mental illness and advocates for a collaborative, data-sharing approach to neuroscience. [11]

Prior to this, Hill served as co-director of Blue Brain, where he led the Neuroinformatics Division. In this role, he pioneered the use of knowledge graphs for organizing neuroscience data, and directed the development of Blue Brain Nexus, [12] [13] an open-source data integration, management, and search platform adopted by both the Blue Brain Project and Human Brain Project.

Hill has developed several large-scale computational brain models and simulations, including the first large-scale model of the visual thalamocortical system of the cat, which accurately replicates multi-scale electrophysiological phenomena during wakefulness and sleep. He has also co-led Blue Brain's efforts to create digital reconstructions of neocortical and thalamic microcircuitry. [11]

He is on the advisory or management boards of several clinical and neuroinformatics initiatives, including the Ontario Brain Institute, Brain Health Nexus, and others.

In 2022, Hill led a team at the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health to develop the Canadian Youth Mental Health Insight Platform, aimed at addressing longstanding gaps in youth mental health care. [14] In 2024, Hill co-led an initiative to establish a pan-Canadian data federation for youth mental health. [15]

Hill is the author of more than 100 peer-reviewed publications, holds multiple patents, [16] and has given talks worldwide on neuroinformatics, mental health, brain modeling and simulation, and the cellular and synaptic mechanisms of conscious and unconscious brain states. [3] [17]

An advocate of global collaboration on data sharing in brain research, Hill has worked with brain projects worldwide to identify potential areas of collaboration and interaction. He has been quoted as saying, "It takes the world to understand the brain." [18]

Hill has appeared in the press and in documentaries about the brain, including on ARTE [19] and the PBS documentary The Brain with David Eagleman, and has been interviewed in print [11] and on radio and television programs including the CBC, [20] CNN, [5] and Bloomberg. [4]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Neuroscience</span> Scientific study of the nervous system

Neuroscience is the scientific study of the nervous system, its functions, and its disorders. It is a multidisciplinary science that combines physiology, anatomy, molecular biology, developmental biology, cytology, psychology, physics, computer science, chemistry, medicine, statistics, and mathematical modeling to understand the fundamental and emergent properties of neurons, glia and neural circuits. The understanding of the biological basis of learning, memory, behavior, perception, and consciousness has been described by Eric Kandel as the "epic challenge" of the biological sciences.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne</span> Public university in Lausanne, Switzerland

The École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne is a public research university in Lausanne, Switzerland. Founded in 1969 with the mission to "train talented engineers in Switzerland", it is inspired by the École Centrale Paris.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Mind uploading</span> Hypothetical process of digitally emulating a brain

Mind uploading is a speculative process of whole brain emulation in which a brain scan is used to completely emulate the mental state of the individual in a digital computer. The computer would then run a simulation of the brain's information processing, such that it would respond in essentially the same way as the original brain and experience having a sentient conscious mind.

Computational neuroscience is a branch of neuroscience which employs mathematics, computer science, theoretical analysis and abstractions of the brain to understand the principles that govern the development, structure, physiology and cognitive abilities of the nervous system.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Centre for Addiction and Mental Health</span> Hospital in Ontario, Canada

The Centre for Addiction and Mental Health is a psychiatric teaching hospital located in Toronto and ten community locations throughout the province of Ontario, Canada. It reports being the largest research facility in Canada for mental health and addictions. The hospital was formed in 1998 from the amalgamation of four separate institutions – the Queen Street Mental Health Centre, the Clarke Institute of Psychiatry, the Addiction Research Foundation, and the Donwood Institute. It is Canada's largest mental health teaching hospital, and the only stand-alone psychiatric emergency department in Ontario. CAMH has 90 distinct clinical services across inpatient, outpatient, day treatment, and partial hospitalization models. CAMH has been the site of major advancements in psychiatric research, including the discovery of the Dopamine receptor D2.

The Krasnow Institute for Advanced Study brings together researchers from many disciplines to study the phenomenon known as the mind. A unit of George Mason University, the Krasnow Institute also serves as a center for doctoral education in neuroscience. Research at the institute is funded by agencies such as the National Institutes of Health, the National Science Foundation and the Department of Defense.

Neuroinformatics is the emergent field that combines informatics and neuroscience. Neuroinformatics is related with neuroscience data and information processing by artificial neural networks. There are three main directions where neuroinformatics has to be applied:

The Blue Brain Project is a Swiss brain research initiative that aims to create a digital reconstruction of the mouse brain. The project was founded in May 2005 by the Brain Mind Institute of École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL) in Switzerland. Its mission is to use biologically-detailed digital reconstructions and simulations of the mammalian brain to identify the fundamental principles of brain structure and function.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">International Neuroinformatics Coordinating Facility</span> International organization promoting open neuroscience standards and practices

The International Neuroinformatics Coordinating Facility is an international non-profit organization with the mission to develop, evaluate, and endorse standards and best practices that embrace the principles of Open, FAIR, and Citable neuroscience. INCF also provides training on how standards and best practices facilitate reproducibility and enables the publishing of the entirety of research output, including data and code. INCF was established in 2005 by recommendations of the Global Science Forum working group of the OECD. The INCF is hosted by the Karolinska Institutet in Stockholm, Sweden. The INCF network comprises institutions, organizations, companies, and individuals active in neuroinformatics, neuroscience, data science, technology, and science policy and publishing. The Network is organized in governing bodies and working groups which coordinate various categories of global neuroinformatics activities that guide and oversee the development and endorsement of standards and best practices, as well as provide training on how standards and best practices facilitate reproducibility and enables the publishing of the entirety of research output, including data and code. The current Directors are Mathew Abrams and Helena Ledmyr, and the Governing Board Chair is Maryann Martone

<span class="mw-page-title-main">National Brain Research Centre</span>

National Brain Research Centre is a research institute in Manesar, Gurugram, India. It is an autonomous institute under the Department of Biotechnology, Ministry of Science and Technology, Government of India. The institute is dedicated to research in neuroscience and brain functions in health and diseases using multidisciplinary approaches. This is the first autonomous institute by DBT to be awarded by the Ministry of Education, Government of India, formerly known as the Ministry of Human Resource Development, in May 2002. NBRC was dedicated to the nation by the Honorable President of India Dr. A.P.J. Abdul Kalam in December 2003. The founder chairman of NBRC Society is Prof. Prakash Narain Tandon, whereas the founder director Prof. Vijayalakshmi Ravindranath was followed by Prof. Subrata Sinha and Prof. Neeraj Jain. The current director of NBRC is Prof. Krishanu Ray.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Human Brain Project</span> Scientific research project

The Human Brain Project (HBP) was a €1-billion EU scientific research project that ran for ten years from 2013 to 2023. Using high-performance exascale supercomputers it built infrastructure that allowed researchers to advance knowledge in the fields of neuroscience, computing and brain-related medicine. Its successor was the EBRAINS project.

In the field of computational neuroscience, brain simulation is the concept of creating a functioning computer model of a brain or part of a brain. Brain simulation projects intend to contribute to a complete understanding of the brain, and eventually also assist the process of treating and diagnosing brain diseases. Simulations utilize mathematical models of biological neurons, such as the hodgkin-huxley model, to simulate the behavior of neurons, or other cells within the brain.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Jane Roskams</span> Canadian neuroscientist

Angela Jane Roskams is a neuroscientist at the University of British Columbia (UBC) with a joint appointment in Neurosurgery at the University of Washington. She is professor at the Centre for Brain Health at UBC, and directed the laboratory of neural regeneration and brain repair, before winding down her lab in 2015–16 to become Executive Director of the Allen Institute for Brain Science, and a leader in the Open Science movement. After leading Strategy and Alliances for the Allen institute's multiple branches, she has become an influencer in the fields of neuroinformatics, public-private partnerships, and Open Data Sharing.

The White House BRAIN Initiative is a collaborative, public-private research initiative announced by the Obama administration on April 2, 2013, with the goal of supporting the development and application of innovative technologies that can create a dynamic understanding of brain function.

Randy L. Buckner is an American neuroscientist and psychologist whose research focuses on understanding how large-scale brain circuits support mental function and how dysfunction arises in illness.

Newton Howard is a brain and cognitive scientist, the former founder and director of the MIT Mind Machine Project at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). He is a former professor of computational neurology and functional neurosurgery at Georgetown University. He is a Memeber of the Congregation of Oxford and was a professor at the University of Oxford, where he directed the Oxford Computational Neuroscience Laboratory. He is also the founder and former director of MIT's Synthetic Intelligence Lab, the founder and the Vic Chairman of the Center for Advanced Defense Studies and the chairman of the Brain Sciences Foundation. Professor Howard is also a senior fellow at the John Radcliffe Hospital at Oxford, a senior scientist at INSERM in Paris and a P.A.H. at the CHU Hospital in Martinique.

Viktor K. Jirsa is a German physicist and neuroscientist, director of research at the Centre national de la recherche scientifique (CNRS), director of the Institut de Neuroscience des Systèmes and co-director of the Fédération Hospitalo-Universitaire (FHU) EPINEXT "Epilepsy and Disorders of Neuronal Excitability" in Marseille, France. He is workpackage leader in the Epinov project funded in the context of the RHU3 call and coordinated by Fabrice Bartolomei.

Peter L. Bossaerts is a Belgian-American economist. He is considered one of the pioneers and leading researchers in neuroeconomics and experimental finance. He is Professor of Neuroeconomics at the University of Cambridge.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Alan Evans (neuroscientist)</span> Welsh-born Canadian neuroscientist

Alan Charles Evans is a Welsh-born Canadian neuroscientist who is a James McGill Professor of Neurology and Neurosurgery, Psychiatry and Biomedical Engineering, and holds the Victor Dahdaleh Chair in Neurosciences at McGill University. He is also a researcher at the McConnell Brain Imaging Centre of the Montreal Neurological Institute, Co-Director of the Ludmer Centre for Neuroinformatics and Mental Health, Director of the McGill Centre for Integrative Neuroscience, Scientific Director of the Canadian Open Neuroscience Platform, Scientific Director of McGill's Healthy Brains, Healthy Lives program and Principal Investigator of CBRAIN, an initiative aiming to integrate Canadian neuroscience data with the Compute Canada computing network. He is recognized for his research on brain mapping, and was a co-founder of both the International Consortium for Brain Mapping and the Organization for Human Brain Mapping. He was OHBM Chair in 2017-18.

References

  1. ↑ Senscience website
  2. ↑ Krembil Centre for Neuroinformatics website
  3. 1 2 "Scientists Trying To Replicate The Human Brain". Sky News, 20 June 2014
  4. 1 2 "Can Europe Map the Human Brain?". Bloomberg, By Sam Chambers 2014-06-27
  5. 1 2 "Scientists to simulate human brain inside a supercomputer". CNN, By Barry Neild, October 12, 2012
  6. ↑ https://globalnews.ca/news/9184301/camh-team-developing-youth-mental-health-platform/
  7. ↑ "This Digital Sliver of Rat Brain Took Researchers 20 Years to Reconstruct". Motherboard, Written by Emiko Jozuka October 8, 2015
  8. ↑ "The Incredible Challenge of Digitizing the Human Brain". Motherboard, by Victoria Turk, June 18, 2014
  9. ↑ "Brain-Mapping Projects to Join Forces". Scientific American, By Sara Reardon, Nature magazine on March 19, 2014
  10. ↑ "CAMH donation gives mental health scientists a chance to harness data with artificial intelligence", by Kelly Grant, Globe and Mail on September 7, 2017
  11. 1 2 3 4 Simon Lewsen (May 19, 2021). "What Happens to Our Brains When We Get Depressed". The Walrus.
  12. ↑ "Blue Brain Nexus: An open-source tool for data-driven science". November 2018.
  13. ↑ "Blue Brain Nexus". GitHub . 5 January 2022.
  14. ↑ "CAMH team developing youth mental health platform". Global News.
  15. ↑ "Government of Canada invests in transformative youth mental health care model".
  16. ↑ "Google Scholar report for Sean Hill". Google Scholar.
  17. ↑ Fatema Kassamali (June 27, 2014). "The Human Brain Project". I, Science.
  18. ↑ "It Takes the World to Map the Brain". The Kavli Foundation. Retrieved 2017-02-27.
  19. ↑ "Square La Guerre du Cerveau". ARTE. Retrieved 2016-11-07.
  20. ↑ "How your phone habits could reveal signs of depression". CBC Radio.
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