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G. Rodrigo Sigala Alanis

Address: Spemannstr. 38
72076 Tübingen
Room number: 133
Fax: +49 7071 601 652
E-Mail: rodrigo.sigala
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Picture of Sigala Alanis, G. Rodrigo

G. Rodrigo Sigala Alanis

Position: PhD Student  Unit: Logothetis

I recently completed my doctoral studies (thesis submitted) focused on investigating the neural correlates of face categorization in human and monkey observers, under the supervision of Prof. Gregor Rainer. In this project we first created a novel set of face stimuli along a continuum between human and monkey faces (morphs). We performed extensive behavioral experiments in both type of observers, recorded extracellular signals in awake monkeys (single units as well as local field potentials) as well as fMRI signals in human subjects. Besides conventional analytic techniques, we also used signal processing, machine learning and information theory to better make sense of the signals we recorded.

Since 2010 I am also collaborator in the project named BION, which is an effort of the European Union to bring scientists from different universities (Parma, Pisa, Warwick) and disciplines (physics, material sciences, nano-electronics, chemistry and neuroscience) to develop a new promising technology. The main idea is to use biological cognitive systems as a benchmark and inspiration to fabricate complex material assemblies which can learn, make decisions, analyze information in a highly parallel way.

Currently, I am a visiting scientist in the Bernstein Center for Computational Neuroscience in Berlin, working in the laboratory of ‘Neural Information Processing’ directed by Prof. Klaus Obermayer.

Synthetic pathways to bio-inspired information processing.

This project is carried out at the Universities of Parma and Pisa, in cooperation with the University of Warwick and our group. It aims at the fabrication of a new hardware made of conducting polymers with adaptive properties. The intention is to imitate the cerebral cortex with its statistical connectivity, modifiable by learning processes, and its associative properties. http://www.fp7-bion.eu/

Neural representation of species-dependent face categories in the primate brain.

This project investigates how information about monkeys and human face categories are represented in the human and non-human primate brain.

RODRIGO SIGALA

rodrigo.sigala@tuebingen.mpg.de

Education

Max-Planck Institute for Biological Cybernetics, Nikos Logothetis Lab, Tuebingen, Germany. PhD Student. 3/3005 - present.

Topic: Neural representation of face categories. Supervisor: Gregor Rainer

Max Planck International Research School & University of Tuebingen.  M.Sc. on Neural and Behavioral Sciences. 10/2002 - 10/2004

Topic: Hierarchical models of the primate cortex for object recognitionSupervisor: Martin Giese and Tomaso Poggio. Thesis done at the Center for Biological and Computational Learning (CBCL).  Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT)

Mexican Autonomous Institute of Technology (ITAM) B.Sc. Computer Engineering (Honors) 08/1996- 02/2002

Topic: Artificial Intelligence and mobile robots. Supervisor: Francisco Cervantes (UNAM)

Experience

Scientific collaborator. BION (european union project): A STEP TOWARDS THE SYNTHETIC BRAIN.  MPI tuebingen, PARma University, Pisa University and Warwick University -- 5/2009 - PRESENT. I work on computer simulations and statistical analysis.  BION brings together physicists, chemists, neurobiologists and theoretical neuroscientists in the highly interdisciplinary endeavor to fabricate and test a complex polymeric, self-assembled, “smart” matrix which can handle information similarly to specific components of biological cognitive systems.  Supervisor: Almut Schuez.

Internship, Justin Gardner’s LAb, Brain Sciences institute, RIKEN, tokyo, Japan -- 7/2010-9/2010  Topic: Attention effects on the visual cortex. Psychophysic experiments and high resolution FMRI in human subjects. Supervisor: Justin Garner and Kang Cheng.

Publications (selected)

Sigala, R,. N. Logothetis and G. Rainer: "Own-species bias in the representations of monkey and human face categories in the primate temporal lobe" Journal of Neurophysiology Epub ahead 1-40..

Sigala, R., G. Rainer, N. Logothetis and J. Schultz: “Categorical representation of a human/monkey face continuum in the human ventral temporal lobe" (submitted).

Sigala, R., J. Veit, N. K. Logothetis and G. Rainer: “Timing of local field potential (LFP) responses in primate inferior temporal (IT) cortex distinguishes between monkey faces, human faces and objects”.

38th Annual Meeting of the Society for Neuroscience 38, 1-1 (11 2008)  (Manuscript in preparetion)

Sigala, R. and G. Rainer: Visual neuroscience: face-encoding mechanisms revealed by adaptation. Current Biology 17(1), R20-R22 (01 2007)

Sigala, G. R., T. Serre, T. Poggio and M. Giese: “Learning features of intermediate complexity for the recognition of biological motion”. ICANN 2005. Lecture notes in computer science ISSN 0302-9743, 241 - 246 (08 2005).

Skills

Experimental design, presentation skills, team work, analysis of brain signals (electrophysiological and BOLD), 3D Morphing Techniques, signal processing, machine learning (Pattern recognition). Software: C++, C, Matlab, 3D Studio Max.

Awards

2002 Best undergraduate student (BSc, generation graduated in 2002) Computer Engineering Faculty-ITAM by the National (Mexican) Association of Engineering Schools and Faculties (Asociación Nacional de Escuelas y Facultades de Ingeniería, ANEFI).

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Articles (3):

• Stoewer S Person, Goense J Person, Keliris GA Person, Bartels A Person, Logothetis NK Person, Duncan J and Sigala N Person (December-2011) Realignment strategies for awake-monkey fMRI data Magnetic Resonance Imaging 29(10) 1390-1400.
• Sigala R Person, Logothetis NK Person and Rainer G Person (June-2011) Own-species bias in the representations of monkey and human face categories in the primate temporal lobe Journal of Neurophysiology 105(6) 2740-2752.
• Sigala R Person and Rainer G Person (January-2007) Visual neuroscience: face-encoding mechanisms revealed by adaptation Current Biology 17(1) R20-R22.

Conference papers (2):

• Sigala R Person, Serre T , Poggio T and Giese M (September-2005) Learning features of intermediate complexity for the recognition of biological motion In: Artificial Neural Networks: Biological Inspirations – ICANN 2005, 15th International Conference on Artificial Neural Networks (ICANN 2005), 241-246.
pdf
• Weitzenfeld A , Cervantes F and Sigala R Person (July-2001) NSL/ASL: Simulation of Neural based Visuomotor Systems International Joint Conference on Neural Networks (IJCNN'01), IEEE, Piscataway, NJ, USA, 1065-1070.

Posters (19):

• Sigala R Person, Smerieri A and Erokhin V (May-2011): Adaptive properties of stochastic memristor networks: a computational study, European Future Technologies Conference (FET 2011).
pdf
• Sigala Alanis GR Person, Schultz J Person, Logothetis NK Person and Rainer G Person (November-2010): "Own-species" bias in the categorical representation of a human/monkey continuum in the human and non-human primate temporal lobe, 40th Annual Meeting of the Society for Neuroscience (Neuroscience 2010), San Diego, CA, USA.
• Sigala Alanis GR Person, Schultz J Person, Logothetis NK Person and Rainer G Person (June-2010): Categorical Representation of a Human/Monkey Face Continum in the Human and Non-Human Primate Temporal Lobe, AREADNE 2010: Research in Encoding And Decoding of Neural Ensembles, 2010 93.
• Sigala Alanis GR Person, Veit J Person, Logothetis NK Person and Rainer G Person (October-2009): Category selectivity in features of the local field potentials and single cell activity simultaneously recorded from the inferior temporal cortex of the macaque monkey, 39th Annual Meeting of the Society for Neuroscience (Neuroscience 2009), Chicago, IL, USA.
• Sigala Alanis GR Person, Veit J Person, Logothetis NK Person and Rainer G Person (August-2009): Encoding of object and face categories by simultaneously recorded local field potentials and single cell activity in the inferior temporal cortex of the macaque monkey, 32nd European Conference on Visual Perception, Regensburg, Germany, Perception, 38(ECVP Abstract Supplement) 78.
• Sigala Alanis GR Person, Logothetis NK Person and Rainer G Person (April-2009): Neural encoding of face-categories in the macaque temporal cortex, The European Future Technologies Conference (FET 2009), 2009 1.
• Sigala Alanis GR Person, Veit J Person, Logothetis NK Person and Rainer G Person (November-2008): Timing of local field potential (LFP) responses in primate inferior temporal (IT) cortex distinguishes between monkey faces, human faces and objects, 38th Annual Meeting of the Society for Neuroscience (Neuroscience 2008), Washington, DC, USA.
• Sigala Alanis GR Person, Logothetis NK Person and Rainer G Person (September-2008): Decoding the perceptual boundary of human/monkey face categories from a population of neurons in the Inferior-Temporal (IT) cortex of the macaque monkey brain, Frontiers in Neuroinformatics, 2008(Conference Abstract: Neuroinformatics 2008) 102.
• Sigala Alanis GR Person, Nielsen KJ Person, Logothetis NK Person and Rainer G Person (November-2007): Decoding the human/monkey face category boundary from the macaque inferior-temporal (IT) cortex using 3D human/monkey morphed faces, 37th Annual Meeting of the Society for Neuroscience (Neuroscience 2007), 37 1.
• Sigala Alanis GR Person, Logothetis NK Person and Rainer G Person (September-2007): Reading out the perceptual boundary between human and monkey face categories from the inferior temporal cortex of the macaque monkey, Perception, 36(ECVP 2007 Abstract Supplement) 218-219.
• Sigala R Person, Veit J Person, Logothetis NK Person and Rainer G Person (July-2007): Using the Local Field Potential (LFP) Recorded from the Inferior-Temporal Cortex of a Macaque Monkey to Study Species-Dependent (Monkey/human) Face Processing, 10th Tübinger Wahrnehmungskonferenz (TWK 2007), 10 1.
• Sigala A. GR Person, Nielsen K Person, Logothetis NK Person and Rainer G Person (March-2007): Neural encoding of species dependent face-categories in the macaque temporal cortex, Göttingen Meeting of the German Neuroscience Society 2007, 7 17.
• Sigala Alanis GR Person, Koch A , Nielsen KJ Person, Logothetis NK Person and Rainer G Person (September-2006): Using 3-D human-monkey morphs to explore the boundaries of species dependent face-categories in humans, Perception, 35(ECVP Abstract Supplement) 207-208.
• Sigala Alanis GR Person, Liebe S Person, Nielsen K Person, Logothetis NK Person and Reiner G Person (June-2006): Inferior temporal cortex during real world vision, AREADNE 2006: Research in Encoding and Decoding of Neural Ensembles, 1 74.
• Sigala A GR Person, Serre T , Poggio T and Giese M (September-23-2005): Learning mid-level motion features for the recognition of body movements, Journal of Vision, 5(8) 26.
• Sigala A. GR Person, Serre T , Poggio T and Casile A (August-2005): Mid-level motion features for the recognition of biological movements, Perception ECVP Abstract Supplement, 34 64.
• Giese M , GRS Person, Wallraven C Person and Leopold D Person (August-13-2004): Physiologically inspired neural model for the prototype-referenced encoding of faces, Journal of Vision, 4(8) 213.
• Sigala A. GR Person, Leopold D Person, Wallraven C Person and Giese MA (February-2004): Physiologically plausible neural model for prototype-referenced encoding of faces, 7th Tübinger Wahrnehmungskonferenz (TWK 2004), 7 1.
• Giese MA , Sigala R Person, Wallraven C Person and Leopold DA Person (2004): Physiologically plausible model for the prototype-referenced encoding of faces..

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