Research interest

I use neuroimaging and histology to study the evolution and development of the brain. I am particularly interested in brain folding and the emergence of brain organisation, which I study using advanced computational neuroanatomy and phylogenetic comparative methods, using large samples of vertebrate species.

I am strongly involved in open, reproducible science and interdisciplinary research: I develop open Web applications to facilitate access to open data, foster collaboration & citizen science (such as BrainBox, MicroDraw and BrainWeb.

I have a background in fine arts and in many of my projects I combine art and science as a way to engage with the general public.

Scientific projects

cerebellumEvo

Diversity and evolution of cerebellar folding in mammals

We’ve been diving into the mesmerising anatomical diversity and evolution of folding across 56 mammalian species with Roberto Toro, Nicolas Traut, Alexandra de Sousa, Sofie Valk, Julien Clavel.

You can find a short summary thread about the study on twitter, and the paper on eLife.

34primates

Evolution of neocortical folding

A phylogenetic comparative analysis of MRI from 34 primate species

The common ancestor to all primates existed ~74 mya. We used MRI to study the neocortex of 34 primates species existing today, to have a glimpse at the evolution of our species. Together with Roberto Toro, Omer Faruk Gulban, Pierre-Louis Bazin, Anastasia Osoianu, Romain Valabregue, Mathieu Santin, Marc Herbin.

You can find a short summary thread about the study on twitter, and the paper here.

mechanialMorphogenesis

Role of mechanical morphogenesis

in the development and evolution of the neocortex

Out of homogeneous growth, mechanical morphogenesis can induce the segregation of the neocortex into mechanical and geometric modules – the neocortical folds. Through the feedback of physical forces on developing tissue, these modules can influence the differentiation and wiring of the neocortex, having a causal role on neocortical development, and providing adaptable and robust units for its evolution. Together with Roberto Toro.

You can find the paper here.

Tools towards an open collaborative neuroscience

I develop open Web applications to facilitate access to open data, foster collaboration & citizen science.

  • brainbox

    BrainBox is a tool for the collaborative curation and real-time interactive annotation and segmentation of any neuroimaging dataset available on the Web.
    Check out our 3-minute video.

  • cerebellumEvo

    MicroDraw is an online tool for visualising and collaboratively annotating high resolution histology data. It allows users to segment regions and annotate them based on a common ontology.

  • thresholdmann

    Thresholdmann is an open source Web tool for the interactive application of space-varying thresholds to Nifti volumes. No download or installation is required and all processing is done in the user’s computer.

  • reorient

    Reorient is an open source Web application for the manual alignment and cropping of MRI Nifti volumes in an intuitive way. The MRI data is dragged onto the Web interface and visualised in an interactive stereotaxic viewer.

  • brainweb

    The BrainWeb is a permanent virtual space for online collaboration on projects related to neuroscience, and a framework to organise distributed communities and an interactive space for virtual poster sessions.

Biosketch

I studied Fine Arts, English and French Philology at Leipzig University, Paris Sorbonne & École nationale Supérieure des Beaux-Arts de Paris. I have then completed my PhD at the Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences investigating mechanical morphogenesis and the development and evolution of primate cortical folding. As a postdoctoral researcher at the Center for Interdisciplinary Research, I have extended my analyses across mammals. During my collaboration with Just One Giant Lab & Institut Pasteur, I focused on Web development, data visualisation & analysis (for example FIIND) towards a collective comparative neuroscience. Now, as a Postdoctoral fellow in the Unit of Applied and Theoretical Neuroanatomy (PI Roberto Toro) at Institut Pasteur with a Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions Individual Fellowship, I focus on the evolution of neuroanatomical diversity across vertebrates.

Organisation of meetings

I have organised several Brainhack meetings to promote open science and collaboration in brain imaging, as well as local sites for the Mozilla Global Sprint and the International Open Data Day. In 2019 I was elected to chair the hackathon of the International Organization for Human Brain Mapping in Rome. With 250 participants, this is the largest OHBM hackathon thus far. I am one of the initiators & organisers of the BrainWeb, a permanent virtual space for online collaborations on projects related to neuroscience, to discover new collaborators and connect the community. I have also co-organised satellite events to the Society for Neuroscience meeting, the largest neuroscience conference. In 2022, I co-organised the QBio Symposium on Mechanics, morphogenesis, development & evolution at Institut Pasteur. Recently, I organised the International Comparative Brain Meeting together with colleagues from Institut Pasteur, University of Oxford and Tel Aviv University.

Selected publications

I have 21 peer-reviewed publications; 1 manuscript currently under review; 26 talks and presentations as invited speaker. For a full list please see my Google Scholar or Orcid page.

Heuer, K., Traut, N., de Sousa, A. A., Valk, S., Clavel, J., & Toro, R. (2023).
Diversity and evolution of cerebellar folding in mammals.
eLife. https://doi.org/10.7554/eLife.85907
Traut, N.*, Heuer, K.*, Lemaître, G.*, Beggiato, A., … Toro, R., & Varoquaux, G. (2022).
Insights from an autism imaging biomarker challenge: promises and threats to biomarker discovery.
NeuroImage. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.neuroimage.2022.119171 [*shared co-first author]
Milham, M., Petkov, C., Belin, P., Ben Hamed, S., Evrard, H., …, Heuer, K., … & Zuo, Z. (2022)
Toward next-generation primate neuroscience: A collaboration-based strategic plan for integrative neuroimaging.
Neuron. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.neuron.2021.10.015
Gau, R.*, Noble, S.*, Heuer, K.*, Bottenhorn, K. L.*, Bilgin, I. P.*, … Zuo, X.-N. (2021).
Brainhack: developing a culture of open, inclusive, community-driven neuroscience.
Neuron. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.neuron.2021.04.001 [*shared co-first author]
Messinger, A., Sirmpilatze, N., Heuer, K., Loh, K. K., Mars, R. B., … Klink, P. C.(2021).
A collaborative resource platform for non-human primate neuroimaging.
NeuroImage. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.neuroimage.2020.117519
Heuer, K., Gulban, O. F., Bazin, P.-L., Osoianu, A., Valabregue, R., Santin, M., Herbin, M., & Toro, R. (2019).
Evolution of neocortical folding: A phylogenetic comparative analysis of MRI from 34 primate species.
Cortex. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cortex.2019.04.011
Heuer, K., & Toro, R. (2019).
Role of mechanical morphogenesis in the development and evolution of the neocortex.
Physics of Life Reviews. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.plrev.2019.01.012

Thanks to

  • pasteur
  • MSCA
  • NAAT
  • ANR
  • MNHN
  • wellcome
  • MPIcbs
  • MPIdemogr
  • ICM
  • osp
  • hbp
  • dim

Please feel free to get in touch

This site features just a fraction of my projects. Please contact me if you have any questions or would like to work together with us.
katjaQheuer(at)gmail.com