Neurosalience #S6E8 with Mario Senden - From rich clubs to mapping neuroscience itself

Dr. Mario Senden is an assistant professor in the Department of Cognitive Neuroscience at Maastricht University in the Netherlands, where he has spent his entire academic career. He received his bachelor's in psychology in 2009 and his PhD in cognitive computational neuroscience in 2016, both from Maastricht. A pioneer in biophysics-aware deep learning, Mario is known for his work on how large-scale brain networks support communication, integration, and perception. His research spans mesoscale laminar microcircuits to the macro-scale connectome, and his functional whole-brain modeling framework combines large-scale anatomical structure with local dynamics and goal-driven computation — asking not just whether a dynamical regime is biologically plausible, but whether it actually supports perceptual and cognitive function.

In this episode, Peter and Mario explore the cutting edge of computational neuroscience and whole-brain modeling. They discuss Mario's influential work on rich club networks, which showed how highly connected cortical hubs dynamically gate information flow during tasks, as well as the principles behind oscillatory behavior in neural systems. A central focus of the conversation is Mario's most recent paper, "The Evolving Landscape of Neuroscience," submitted to Aperture Neuro — a sweeping meta-scientific analysis of roughly half a million neuroscience articles published between 1999 and 2023. Using text embeddings, semantic clustering, and large language models, Mario mapped the structural organization of the field and identified emerging trends and future directions. The conversation also touches on the promise of interdisciplinary approaches, the growing role of AI tools in neuroscience research, and the broader challenge of integrating theories and data across scales and domains to truly understand the brain.

We hope you enjoy this episode!

Chapters:

00:00 - Introduction to Dr. Mario Senden

05:11 - Journey from Psychology to Computational Neuroscience

10:01 - Understanding Cognitive Computational Neuroscience

14:09 - Limits of Current Models in Cognitive Computational Neuroscience

20:44 - Exploring the Rich Club Concept in Brain Networks

29:22 - The Interplay of Cortex and Subcortex

42:44 - Oscillatory Behavior and Network Coordination

48:41 - Multi-Scale Modeling in Neuroscience

57:49 - Exploring the Evolving Landscape of Neuroscience

01:21:08 - Advice for Young Scientists

Works mentioned:

42:19 - Senden et al. (2017). Cortical rich club regions can organize state-dependent functional network formation by engaging in oscillatory behavior. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.neuroimage.2016.10.044

48:27 - Pronold et al. (2024). Multi-scale spiking network model of human cerebral cortex. https://doi.org/10.1093/cercor/bhae409

48:27 - Senden et al. (2024). Modular-integrative modeling: a new framework for building brain models that blend biological realism and functional performance. https://doi.org/10.1093/nsr/nwad318

57:50 - Senden, M. (2025). The Evolving Landscape of Neuroscience. https://doi.org/10.1101/2025.02.13.638094

Episode producers:

Ömer Faruk Gülban, Xuqian Michelle Li