Sean Hill

Administrative Assistant: Jessica Jue, jessica.jue@camh.ca

Research Synopsis

Dr. Hill has extensive experience in building and simulating large-scale models of brain circuitry and has also supervised and led research efforts exploring the principles underlying the structure and dynamics of neocortical and thalamocortical microcircuitry. He currently serves in management and advisory roles on several large-scale clinical informatics initiatives around the world. Currently, his research is focused on developing new biophysically detailed models of rodent thalamocortical circuitry using high quality datasets from single cell transcriptomics, whole brain single cell reconstructions, and many other new sources of high quality data emerging from the large-scale brain projects in the US, EU and China. Future work will develop approaches to embed models of thalamocortical microcircuit dynamics within computational models of the whole rodent and human brains. By coupling models of the local dynamics with data-driven whole brain anatomy and synaptic connection pathways, we will explore the cellular and synaptic basis of whole brain dynamics and the capacity to integrate information across scales. Ultimately, these models can be personalized to specific configurations that integrate genetic constraints on ion channels and receptors, cellular populations and synaptic connectivity based of the patterns from individual brains. In the future, such models can form the basis of personalized diagnostics, interventions and treatments.