Larry Swanson Elected Next Secretary-General of IBRO

Professor Swanson will officially succeed current Secretary-General Sten Grillner, distinguished Professor at Karolinska Institutet, in January 2016 and support the continued development and promotion of neuroscience in this international capacity for a 3-year term at IBRO.

Swanson is an internationally renowned neuroscientist whose scientific career continues to brim with professional achievements, pivotal scientific contributions and distinguished accolades, clearly demonstrating his ability to assume a global leadership role at IBRO.

Deeply interested in how behavior is influenced and controlled by neural circuits, nodes and networks, Swanson’s early research contributed insights that increased understanding about the organization of neurotransmitter systems and charted thousands of new connections that strengthened foundational research on behavioral issues including drinking, feeding, defensive behavior, sleep and stress.

He has also been considered a pioneer in neuroinformatics and is currently involved in the neuroscience subfield, connectomics, that studies and maps the brain’s wiring. At USC, Swanson is using computer graphics and database approaches to display and model neural networks that control motivated behavior in mammals.

One of his most recent achievements is “Golgi,” a web app launched in October 2014 that provides an interactive map of a rat brain, facilitating understanding of how different regions of the brain communicate and interact (www.useGolgi.com).

Delighted to learn the news, Swanson responded, “I am deeply honored to serve the global neuroscience community as Secretary-General of IBRO. Public interest in neuroscience has never been greater and I look forward to helping IBRO implement its goals of advancing neuroscience research and education around the world in this exciting new digital age of genomes, connectomes, and so much more.”