Professor Stephen Coombes
Professor of Applied Maths, School of Mathematical Sciences
I am an Applied Mathematician at the 糖心原创 with a background in Theoretical Physics (BSc; 1990) and Neurocomputing (PhD; 1995). My main research interests lie in the area of mathematical biology and in particular the application of principles from nonlinear dynamics and statistical physics to the study of neural systems.
I have made substantial contributions to models of cortical and thalamic neural tissue. These models often take the form of integro-differential equations. Their non-local nature has led to the development of a set of analytical and numerical tools for the study of waves, bumps, and patterns, based around extensions of those used for local differential equation models.
I am the co-author of a recent book (Springer, 2023) which uses techniques from modern applied mathematics to provide a perspective on ranging from single neuron to tissue level, and have previously edited a book on (Springer, 2014) for the description of coarse-grained activity of populations of interacting neurons.
N3Centre Research Interests
Understanding neural mechanisms
Current projects
Project title: MRC Epilepsy as a dynamic disease
Funding: £185k, 2021-2025, DTP Integrated Midlands Partnership for Biomedical Training: IMPACT
Key Publications
- Forrester M, Petros S, Cattell O, Lai YM, O'Dea RD, Sotiropoulos S, Coombes S. Whole brain functional connectivity: Insights from next generation neural mass modelling incorporating electrical synapses. PLoS Comput Biol. 2024 Dec 5;20(12):e1012647. doi: 10.1371/journal.pcbi.1012647. PMID: 39637233; PMCID: PMC11651611.
- Şaylı, Mustafa & Coombes, Stephen. (2023). Understanding the effect of white matter delays on large scale brain synchrony. Communications in Nonlinear Science and Numerical Simulation. 131. 107803. 10.1016/j.cnsns.2023.107803.