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Hosted at the University of Washington, Seattle Campus

• Title: The Human Brain Atlas at 3T and 7T for adults and children
• Date/Time: Tuesday, May 28th, 1-2pm
• Location: Kincaid 102/108 (in-person)
• Abstract. Virtually all major discoveries in neuroscience for the last 100 years have been underpinned by an increasingly detailed understanding of the architecture and connectivity of the central nervous system. We introduce HumanBrainAtlas, an initiative to construct highly detailed, open-access segmentations of the living human brain. Combining high-resolution in vivo MR imaging and in-depth delineations previously only available on histological preparations. Here, we present and evaluate the first step of this initiative: a comprehensive dataset of two healthy male volunteers reconstructed to a 0.25 mm isotropic resolution for T1w, T2w, and DWI contrasts. Multiple high-resolution acquisitions were collected for each contrast and each participant, followed by averaging using symmetric group-wise normalisation (Advanced Normalisation Tools). The resulting image quality permits structural parcellations rivalling histology-based atlases, while maintaining the advantages of in vivo MRI. For example, components of the thalamus, hypothalamus, and hippocampus are often impossible to identify using standard MRI protocols—can be identified within the present data. We have also developed a more participant friendly protocol achieving 0.5 mm resolution compatible with children and some patients.
• Bio. Dr. Schira is a Senior Lecturer at the School of Psychology at the University of Wollongong and a Senior Research Officer at the Neuroscience Research Australia in Sydney. He received a Dr. rer. nat. (Doctorate in Natural Sciences) in Human Neurobiology from the University of Bremen and Charité; University Hospital in Berlin, under the supervision of Prof. Manfred Fahle and Prof. Stephan Brandt. He worked as a postdoctoral fellow with Christopher Tyler at the Smith-Kettlewell Eye Research Institute in San Francisco and with Michael Breakspear and Branka Spehar at the University of New South Wales in Sydney. Since 2013 he is supervising his own research group in systems neuroscience focusing on the function, organization and imaging of human visual cortex.

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In this introspective memoir meets heavy-hitting medical drama, Junger sets out to grapple with the seemingly unanswerable queries and concerns that haunted him after suffering a nearly lethal ruptured aneurysm. Weighing a background that praised the empirical against the old ghosts that appeared to him at his most critical moments, atheist-identified Junger ventures even further into the unfamiliar by following a line of deeply human questions. How do we begin to process the brutal fact that any of us might perish unexpectedly on what begins as an ordinary day? And what happens to a person, emotionally and spiritually, when forced to reckon with such existential questions? In My Time of Dying explores the intersection of science, religion, and philosophy and turns the examination inward when pondering how we best continue to live once we become truly aware that no one is immune to death.

Sebastian Junger is a best-selling author, award-winning journalist, and documentary filmmaker with a focus on stories of war, occupational risk, and trauma. His reporting and writing have been featured in Vanity Fair, where he serves as a contributing editor, National Geographic Adventure, Harper’s, and The New York Times Magazine. His previous publications and works include the books The Perfect Storm, War, Tribe, and Freedom as well as the Academy Award-nominated documentary film Restrepo. He is the founder and director of Vets Town Hall, an organization that provides veterans with opportunities to speak about their experiences.

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Over the past decade, charitable crowdfunding has exploded in popularity across the globe. Sites such as GoFundMe, which now boasts a “global community of over 100 million” users, have transformed the ways we seek and offer help. When faced with crises—especially medical ones—Americans are turning to online platforms that promise to connect them to the charity of the crowd. What does this new phenomenon reveal about the changing ways we seek and provide healthcare? In Crowded Out, Nora Kenworthy examines how charitable crowdfunding so quickly overtook public life, where it is taking us, and who gets left behind by this new platformed economy.

Although crowdfunding has become ubiquitous in our lives, it is often misunderstood: rather than a friendly free market “powered by the kindness” of strangers, crowdfunding is powerfully reinforcing inequalities and changing the way Americans think about and access healthcare. Drawing on extensive research and rich storytelling, Crowded Out demonstrates how crowdfunding for health is fueled by—and further reinforces—financial and moral “toxicities” in market-based healthcare systems. It offers a unique and distressing look beneath the surface of some of the most popular charitable platforms and helps to foster thoughtful discussions of how we can better respond to healthcare crises both small and large.

Nora Kenworthy is Associate Professor at the University of Washington Bothell. She is the author and editor of several books, and her writing has appeared in the American Journal of Public Health, Social Science and Medicine, PLOS One, Scientific American, the Washington Post, and the Los Angeles Times.

Marcus Harrison Green is a columnist for The Seattle Times. A long-time Seattle native, he is the founder of the South Seattle Emerald, which focuses on telling the stories of South Seattle and its residents.