Brain Simulation Section

The focus of this group is personalized brain simulation. Prof. Dr. Ritter and her team at the Charité Department of Neurology with Experimental Neurology have joined forces with international partners to create the open-source neuroinformatics platform The Virtual Brain.

To produce the simulations, Ritter and her team are integrating data gathered from patients who have, for example, experienced a stroke or developed a brain tumor. The result is a personalized brain model for every patient, which contributes towards a better understanding of disease processes in the brain and enables the development of new therapy approaches.

The principle is simple: the more data scientists are able to integrate, the more precise the model becomes. The vision for the future is that the treatment of brain disorders will be planned using a digital copy of the person’s brain. The Virtual Brain also allows her and her team to simulate possible scenarios of disease progression, potentially allowing future treatment plans to be modified early on.