Brain membranes and vasculature: a computational mathematics tale of dimensional gaps

Marie Rognes

Simula Research Laboratory

Thursday 20th March 2025

15:00:00

Aula Rogers, Piano Terra, Edificio 11, Politecnico di Milano

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Structurally, brain tissue is characterized by thin cell membranes and slender vessels, defining submanifolds of codimension one and two respectively.  Functionally, your brain fundamentally relies on the transport of ions and nutrients and movement of water in and between these spaces. These physiological processes are clearly crucial for brain function and health, but the precise mechanisms and their association with neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer's and Parkinson's disease and neurological events such as seizures remain only partially understood. Notably, mathematical and computational modelling are beginning to play an important role in gaining new insight. In this talk, I will discuss key mathematical, numerical and computational challenges associated with modelling brain mechanics and transport across scales with an emphasis on coupled systems of partial differential equations with dimensional gaps. Contatti: paola.antonietti@polimi.it

Marie E. Rognes is Chief Research Scientist in Scientific Computing and Numerical Analysis at Simula Research Laboratory, Oslo, Norway. Her research focuses on computational mathematics and its applications in the life sciences in general and neuroscience in particular. She received her Ph.D from the University of Oslo in 2009 after an extended research stay at the University of Minnesota Twin Cities, Minneapolis, US. She has been at Simula Research Laboratory since 2009, and led its Department for Biomedical Computing from 2012 to 2016. She held a Professor II position (20%) at the Department of Mathematics, University of Bergen, Norway (2020-2022), and was a Visiting Fulbright Scholar at the Institute for Engineering in Medicine, University of California San Diego, CA, US (2022-2023). Rognes is a member of the Norwegian Academy for Technological Sciences (2022-) and was a Founding Member of the Young Academy of Norway in 2016. She won the 2015 Wilkinson Prize for Numerical Software, the 2018 Royal Norwegian Society of Sciences and Letters Prize for Young Researchers within the Natural Sciences, an ERC Starting Grant in Mathematics in 2017, and is the principal recipient of several ground-breaking research grants from the Research Council of Norway. She is (or has been) a member of the Research Council of Norway's Portfolio Board for ground-breaking research (2024-), the European Mathematical Society's Committee for Applications and Interdisciplinary Relations (2023-), the Interpore Council (2023-), and the FEniCS Steering Council (2016-2024), in addition to six Editorial Boards spanning pure and applied mathematics, scientific computing and mathematical software. Rognes has supervised more than 8 postdoctoral fellows, 16 PhD or DPhil students, and 13 MSc students in the period 2012-2024.