Dr. Rose’s Emmy Noether Group aims at harnessing Artificial Intelligence to deepen our understanding of how behavior and neural activity interplay in freely moving animals. „This is a great time for this research thanks to advances in recording technologies for animal behavior. Technologies tracking animal movement now provide better spatial and temporal precision in 3D, while brain recordings are increasingly available from freely moving animals. Behavior and language have many similarities: both unfold over time and contain multiple layers of meaning. Novel deep learning techniques excel at uncovering patterns in language – and can do the same for behavior, helping us detect subtle motifs we haven’t seen before. Some of these methods even directly learn from the data itself! Bringing this together, we can now study more natural and complex behaviors in controlled settings, further connecting brain activity to behavior,“ shares Dr. Rose.
Leveraging her expertise in Computational Biology, Dr. Rose develops new tools for behavioral science, working with various species, including flies, mice, and fish. She is creating innovative deep learning techniques that allow automatic analysis of movement patterns and neural processes, eliminating the need for manual annotations. Her work aims to establish a robust framework for understanding the diversity of animal behavior, which could improve the diagnosis and treatment of musculoskeletal and neural disorders in the future.
Interdisciplinary networking at the Lamarr Institute
Dr. France Rose’s Emmy Noether Group is part of the working group led by Prof. Dr. Jürgen Gall, Principal Investigator at the Lamarr Institute for Machine Learning and Artificial Intelligence. This connection to an established research unit offers ideal conditions for implementing the goals of the Emmy Noether Program: giving outstanding young scientists the opportunity to conduct independent research at an early stage while being embedded in an excellent research environment.
A great asset for Bonn as a research location
“We are delighted about the funding for Dr. France Rose and the recognition of her outstanding research,” says Dr. Brendan Balcerak Jackson, Managing Director of the Lamarr Institute at the University of Bonn. “The Emmy Noether Program offers excellent young scientists the opportunity to conduct independent research and take on responsibility at an early stage – a great benefit for Bonn as a research location.” Dr. Rose’s work combines basic research in behavioral biology with the latest methods of machine learning, thereby contributing to an understanding of neural processes and decision-making mechanisms with unprecedented precision.