Regaining or maintaining brain health: current and future roles for computational models

Current therapies for brain disorders, e.g. pharmaceutical drugs, affect the whole brain network leading to large side effects. I will describe how computational models can be used to inform targeted interventions. Such models are informed by information about brain networks in individual patients, using data from the UK Biobank Imaging project or of ongoing studies, and by dynamical simulations of intervention effects at the (local) tissue level or the (global) network level. Examples for model applications include (a) the prognosis of later onset of Alzheimer’s disease using brain network changes and machine learning, (b) use of focused ultrasound to change activity in individual brain regions, and (c) models of the tissue-level effect of electrical brain stimulation. I will conclude with an outlook on future opportunities for computer models in precision medicine.