Biography:Alfonso Nieto-Castanon

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Short description: Spanish computational neuroscientist
Alfonso Nieto-Castanon
Alfonso Nieto-Castanon picture.jpeg
Alfonso Nieto-Castanon in 2016
BornSeptember 1972
Spain
Alma materUniversidad de Valladolid, Boston University
Known forfunctional neuroimaging, subject-specific ROIs, connectome, CONN
Scientific career
FieldsComputational neuroscience, Neuroimaging
InstitutionsBoston University, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Doctoral advisorFrank H. Guenther

Alfonso Nieto-Castanon (born September 1972) is a Spanish computational neuroscientist and developer of computational neuroimaging analysis methods and tools. He is a visiting researcher at the Boston University College of Health and Rehabilitation Sciences,[1] and research affiliate at MIT McGovern Institute for Brain Research.[2] His research focuses on the understanding and characterization of human brain dynamics underlying mental function.

Early life and education

Nieto-Castanon was born in Spain in 1972.[3] He was part of the first Spanish team to participate in the International Physics Olympiad in 1990[citation needed]. He went to college at the Universidad de Valladolid from 1991 to 1995 and earned a B.S./M.S. in Telecommunications Engineering. In 1998 he pursued graduate studies in Boston University Cognitive and Neural Systems Department and was awarded a research training fellowship from Fundación Séneca/Cedetel, and a graduate research fellowship from Boston University. He received a Ph.D. in Computational Neuroscience in 2004.[4]

Contributions to science

ROI analyses

In some of his early work Nieto-Castanon helped develop novel methods for region of interest (ROI) analyses of fMRI data,[5] with a focus on multivariate techniques and the use of subject-specific ROIs, where regions of interest are defined differently for each person based on common anatomical or functional landmarks.[6][7] Subject-specific ROIs allowed researchers to probe the limits of the functional localization hypotheses common in neuroimaging, and better understand the spatial and functional specificity of different brain areas.[8]

Brain-computer interfaces

In collaboration with Boston University's Neural Prosthesis Laboratory, Nieto-Castanon helped build a Neuroprosthetic device for real-time speech synthesis.[9] This system was designed to allow patients with locked-in syndrome to produce speech by decoding signals from a neurotrophic electrode implanted in the brain.[10][11]

Functional connectivity

Nieto-Castanon also developed multiple influential mathematical and computational techniques for functional connectivity analyses,[12] with a special emphasis on the robust estimation of functional connectivity measures in the presence of subject-motion and physiological noise sources.[13] In 2011 he developed CONN to integrate and facilitate best practices in functional connectivity studies.[14] CONN included a combination of novel methods such as multivariate connectivity analyses and dynamic connectivity estimation, together with multiple well known techniques such as psycho-physiological interactions, graph analyses, or independent component analyses. His software has been since widely adopted in the field[15][16][17][18][19] and it is now regularly used in functional connectivity studies, with over 900 citations during 2021 alone[20]

Nieto-Castanon has given numerous courses and lectures worldwide[21][22][23][24][25] and his work has been cited in over 8000 refereed journal articles to date.[26]

International competitions

Beyond his research, Nieto-Castanon is also recognized for his participation in international programming and data-analysis competitions. Programming in Matlab, Nieto-Castanon won in 2009 and in 2011 the Color Bridge and Vines MathWorks collaborative-programming competitions.[27][28] He was also the winner in 2011 of the Microsoft Kinect video gesture identification competition,[29][30] obtained second place at the Marinexplore and Cornell University Whale Detection audio classification challenge,[31] took first prize in 2013 Genentech's Flu Forecasting predictive model competition,[32] and placed second in MathWorks 2014 bin packing optimization competition.[33] In 2013 Nieto-Castanon was ranked as the third best data-scientist in Kaggle,[34][35] and he has been ranked as the best Matlab programmer in MathWorks Cody games for seven consecutive years between 2013 and 2019.[36]

References

  1. ↑ [1][2] Boston University
  2. ↑ [3] Massachusetts Institute of Technology
  3. ↑ Dissertation VITA
  4. ↑ Nieto-Castanon, A. (2004). An investigation of articulatory-acoustic relationships in speech production. Boston University
  5. ↑ Nieto-Castanon, Alfonso; Ghosh, Satrajit S.; Tourville, Jason A.; Guenther, Frank H. (August 2003). "Region of interest based analysis of functional imaging data". NeuroImage 19 (4): 1303–1316. doi:10.1016/s1053-8119(03)00188-5. PMID 12948689. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/12948689. 
  6. ↑ Nieto-Castañón, Alfonso; Fedorenko, Evelina (2012-11-15). "Subject-specific functional localizers increase sensitivity and functional resolution of multi-subject analyses". NeuroImage 63 (3): 1646–1669. doi:10.1016/j.neuroimage.2012.06.065. PMID 22784644. 
  7. ↑ Fedorenko, Evelina; Hsieh, Po-Jang; Nieto-Castañón, Alfonso; Whitfield-Gabrieli, Susan; Kanwisher, Nancy (August 2010). "New method for fMRI investigations of language: defining ROIs functionally in individual subjects". Journal of Neurophysiology 104 (2): 1177–1194. doi:10.1152/jn.00032.2010. PMID 20410363. 
  8. ↑ Fedorenko, Evelina (2021). "The early origins and the growing popularity of the individual-subject analytic approach in human neuroscience". Current Opinion in Behavioral Sciences 40: 105–112. doi:10.1016/j.cobeha.2021.02.023. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cobeha.2021.02.023. 
  9. ↑ Guenther, Frank Harold & Alfonso Nieto-Castanon, "Low-dimensional real-time concatenative speech synthesizer", US patent 10553199, published 2020-02-04, assigned to Trustees of Boston University
  10. ↑ “Brain-Powered Technology May Help Locked-In Patients” PBS NewsHour, October 14, 2011, https://www.pbs.org/newshour/rundown/2011/10/brain-powered-technology-may-help-locked-in-patients.html
  11. ↑ Keim, Brandon. "Wireless Brain-to-Computer Connection Synthesizes Speech" (in en-US). Wired. ISSN 1059-1028. https://www.wired.com/2009/12/wireless-brain/. 
  12. ↑ Nieto-Castanon, A. (2020). Handbook of functional connectivity Magnetic Resonance Imaging methods in CONN. Hilbert Press.
  13. ↑ Chai, Xiaoqian J.; Castañón, Alfonso Nieto; Ongür, Dost; Whitfield-Gabrieli, Susan (2012-01-16). "Anticorrelations in resting state networks without global signal regression". NeuroImage 59 (2): 1420–1428. doi:10.1016/j.neuroimage.2011.08.048. PMID 21889994. 
  14. ↑ Whitfield-Gabrieli, Susan; Nieto-Castanon, Alfonso (2012). "Conn: a functional connectivity toolbox for correlated and anticorrelated brain networks". Brain Connectivity 2 (3): 125–141. doi:10.1089/brain.2012.0073. PMID 22642651. 
  15. ↑ Dixon, Matthew L.; de la Vega, Alejandro; Mills, Caitlin; Andrews-Hanna, Jessica; Spreng, R. Nathan; Cole, Michael W.; Christoff, Kalina (2018). "Heterogeneity within the frontoparietal control network and its relationship to the default and dorsal attention networks". Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 115 (7): E1598–E1607. doi:10.1073/pnas.1715766115. PMID 29382744. Bibcode: 2018PNAS..115E1598D. 
  16. ↑ Vatansever, D.; Menon, D. K.; Manktelow, A. E.; Sahakian, B. J.; Stamatakis, E. A. (2015). "Default Mode Dynamics for Global Functional Integration". Journal of Neuroscience 35 (46): 15254–15262. doi:10.1523/JNEUROSCI.2135-15.2015. PMID 26586814. PMC 4649001. https://doi.org/10.1523/JNEUROSCI.2135-15.2015. 
  17. ↑ Boes, Aaron D.; Prasad, Sashank; Liu, Hesheng; Liu, Qi; Pascual-Leone, Alvaro; Caviness, Verne S.; Fox, Michael D. (2015). "Network localization of neurological symptoms from focal brain lesions". Brain 138 (10): 3061–3075. doi:10.1093/brain/awv228. PMID 26264514. PMC 4671478. https://doi.org/10.1093/brain/awv228. 
  18. ↑ Demertzi, Athena; Antonopoulos, Georgios; Heine, Lizette; Voss, Henning U.; Crone, Julia Sophia; De Los Angeles, Carlo; Bahri, Mohamed Ali; Di Perri, Carol et al. (2015). "Intrinsic functional connectivity differentiates minimally conscious from unresponsive patients". Brain 138 (9): 2619–2631. doi:10.1093/brain/awv169. PMID 26117367. https://doi.org/10.1093/brain/awv169. 
  19. ↑ Dodhia, Sonam; Hosanagar, Avinash; Fitzgerald, Daniel A.; Labuschagne, Izelle; Wood, Amanda G.; Nathan, Pradeep J.; Phan, K Luan (2014). "Modulation of Resting-State Amygdala-Frontal Functional Connectivity by Oxytocin in Generalized Social Anxiety Disorder". Neuropsychopharmacology 39 (9): 2061–2069. doi:10.1038/npp.2014.53. PMID 24594871. PMC 4104324. https://doi.org/10.1038/npp.2014.53. 
  20. ↑ Google Scholar CONN references
  21. ↑ Harvard/MGH courses
  22. ↑ Neurometrika courses
  23. ↑ Harvard/MGH courses
  24. ↑ University of Cincinnati & CHMC
  25. ↑ BCBL
  26. ↑ Google Scholar Nieto-Castanon profile
  27. ↑ Matlab contest Hall of Fame
  28. ↑ Saez, Juan Manuel. "Alfonso Nieto Castanon gana por segunda vez este concurso de programacion online de MathWorks". Developers TI. https://www.developersti.es/noticias-developer/1alfonso-nieto-castanon-gana-por-segunda-vez-este-concurso-de-programacion-online-de-mathworks456. 
  29. ↑ Byrne, Ciara (December 12, 2011). "Kaggle launches competition to help Microsoft Kinect learn new gestures". VentureBeat. https://venturebeat.com/2011/12/12/kaggle-competition-microsoft-kinect-learn-new-gestures/. 
  30. ↑ Kaggle Microsoft Kinect competition
  31. ↑ Marlow, Jeffrey (February 12, 2013). "Wanted: Right Whale Caller ID". Wired. https://www.wired.com/2013/02/wanted-right-whale-caller-id/. 
  32. ↑ "Join the team". Kaggle newsletter. http://blog.kaggle.com/2014/03/24/kaggle-newsletter-join-the-team. 
  33. ↑ "Packing Santa's Sleigh". MathWorks Blogs. March 21, 2014. http://blogs.mathworks.com/pick/2014/03/21/packing-santas-sleigh. 
  34. ↑ "Google buys Kaggle and its gaggle of AI geeks" (in en). CNET. 2017-03-08. https://www.cnet.com/news/google-buys-kaggle-and-its-gaggle-of-ai-geeks/. 
  35. ↑ Kaggle Nieto-Castanon profile
  36. ↑ Gulley, Ned (January 29, 2014). "Cody interview:Alfonso Nieto-Castanon". MathWorks Blogs. http://blogs.mathworks.com/community/2014/01/29/the-cody-interview-alfonso-nieto-castanon. 

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