Portrait of Danilo Bzdok

Danilo Bzdok

Core Academic Member
bzdokdan@mila.quebec
Canada CIFAR AI Chair
Associate Professor, McGill University, Department of Biomedical Engineering
Research Topics
Computational Biology
Deep Learning
Large Language Models (LLM)
Natural Language Processing

Biography

Danilo Bzdok is a computer scientist and medical doctor by training with a unique dual background in systems neuroscience and machine learning algorithms. After training at RWTH Aachen University (Germany), Université de Lausanne (Switzerland) and Harvard Medical School, Bzdok completed two doctoral degrees, one in neuroscience at Forschungszentrum Jülich in Germany, and another in computer science (machine learning statistics) at INRIA–Saclay and the Neurospin brain imaging centre in Paris.

Danilo is currently an associate professor at McGill University’s Faculty of Medicine and a Canada CIFAR AI Chair at Mila – Quebec Artificial Intelligence Institute. His interdisciplinary research centres around narrowing knowledge gaps in the brain basis of human-defining types of thinking in order to uncover key computational design principles underlying human intelligence.

Current Students

Shambhavi Aggarwal
Master's Research - McGill University
Github
Google Scholar
Badr Ait Hammou
Postdoctorate - McGill University
Karan Bali Bali
PhD - McGill University
Gregory Bell
PhD - McGill University
Anwesha Bhattacharya
PhD - McGill University
Pedro Carneiro Carneiro
PhD - McGill University
Github
Liam Hodgson
PhD - McGill University
Ryan McPhedrain McPhedrain
Postdoctorate - McGill University
ryan.mcphedrain@mail.mcgill.ca
David Payette
Master's Research - McGill University
Github
Sepehr Radmannia
Independent visiting researcher - McGill University
sradmannia@gmail.com
Github
Karin Saltoun
PhD - McGill University
Chloé Savignac
PhD - McGill University
Github
Google Scholar
Jack Stanley
PhD - McGill University
Website
Github
Praneet Suresh
PhD - McGill University
Le Zhou
PhD - McGill University

Publications

Distinctive whole-brain cell types predict tissue damage patterns in thirteen neurodegenerative conditions
Veronika Pak
Quadri Adewale
Danilo Bzdok
Mahsa Dadar
Yashar Zeighami
Yasser Iturria-Medina
For over a century, brain research narrative has mainly centered on neuron cells. Accordingly, most neurodegenerative studies focus on neuro… (see more)nal dysfunction and their selective vulnerability, while we lack comprehensive analyses of other major cell types’ contribution. By unifying spatial gene expression, structural MRI, and cell deconvolution, here we describe how the human brain distribution of canonical cell types extensively predicts tissue damage in thirteen neurodegenerative conditions, including early-and late-onset Alzheimer’s disease, Parkinson’s disease, dementia with Lewy bodies, amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, mutations in presenilin-1, and three clinical variants of frontotemporal lobar degeneration (behavioural variant, semantic and non-fluent primary progressive aphasia) along with associated 3-repeat and 4-repeat tauopathies and TDP43 proteinopathies types A and C. We reconstructed comprehensive whole-brain reference maps of cellular abundance for six major cell types and identified characteristic axes of spatial overlapping with atrophy. Our results support the strong mediating role of non-neuronal cells, primarily microglia and astrocytes, in spatial vulnerability to tissue loss in neurodegeneration, with distinct and shared across-disorders pathomechanisms. These observations provide critical insights into the multicellular pathophysiology underlying spatiotemporal advance in neurodegeneration. Notably, they also emphasize the need to exceed the current neuro-centric view of brain diseases, supporting the imperative for cell-specific therapeutic targets in neurodegeneration.
2023-06-09
bioRxiv (preprint)
doi.org
A hierarchical Bayesian brain parcellation framework for fusion of functional imaging datasets
Da Zhi
Ladan Shahshahani
Caroline Nettekoven
Ana Lúısa Pinho
Danilo Bzdok
Jörn Diedrichsen
2023-05-24
bioRxiv (preprint)
doi.org
156. Modeling Eye Gaze to Videos Using Dynamic Trajectory Variability Analysis
Qianying Wu
Na Yeon Kim
Jasmin Turner
Umit Keles
Lynn Paul
Danilo Bzdok
Ralph Adolphs
2023-05-01
Biological Psychiatry (published)
doi.org
Using rare genetic mutations to revisit structural brain asymmetry
Jakub Kopal
Kuldeep Kumar
Kimia Shafighi
Karin Saltoun
Claudia Modenato
Clara A. Moreau
Guillaume Huguet
Martineau Jean-Louis
Charles-Olivier Martin
C.O. Martin
Zohra Saci
Nadine Younis
Elise Douard
Khadije Jizi
Alexis Beauchamp-Chatel
Leila Kushan
Ana I. Silva
Marianne B.M. van den Bree
David E.J. Linden
M. J. Owen … (see 11 more)
Jeremy Hall
Sarah Lippé
Bogdan Draganski
Ida E. Sønderby
Ole A. Andreassen
David C. Glahn
Paul M. Thompson
Carrie E. Bearden
Robert Zatorre
Sébastien Jacquemont
Danilo Bzdok
2023-04-18
bioRxiv (preprint)
doi.org
Genesis, modelling and methodological remedies to autism heterogeneity
Juliette Rabot
Eya‐mist Rødgaard
Ridha Joober
Guillaume Dumas
Danilo Bzdok
Boris C Bernhardt
Sébastien Jacquemont
Laurent Mottron
2023-04-01
Neuroscience and Biobehavioral Reviews (published)
doi.org
Home alone: A population neuroscience investigation of brain morphology substrates
M. Noonan
Chris Zajner
Danilo Bzdok
2023-04-01
NeuroImage (published)
doi.org
Investigating the neural correlates of affective mentalizing and their association with general intelligence in patients with schizophrenia
Wladimir Tantchik
M. J. Green
Yann Quidé
Susanne Erk
Sebastian Mohnke
Carolin Wackerhagen
Nina Romanczuk-seiferth
Heike Tost
Kristina Schwarz
Carolin Moessnang
Danilo Bzdok
Andreas Meyer-Lindenberg
Andreas Heinz
Henrik Walter
2023-04-01
Schizophrenia Research (published)
doi.org
Bayesian stroke modeling details sex biases in the white matter substrates of aphasia
Julius M Kernbach
Gesa Hartwigsen
Jae‐Sung Lim
Hee-Joon Bae
Kyung‐Ho Yu
Gottfried Schlaug
Anna K. Bonkhoff
Natalia S. Rost
Danilo Bzdok
2023-03-31
Communications Biology (published)
doi.org
Transitions between cognitive topographies: contributions of network structure, neuromodulation, and disease
Andrea I. Luppi
S. Parker Singleton
Justine Y. Hansen
Danilo Bzdok
Amy Kuceyeski
Richard F. Betzel
Bratislav Mišić
2023-03-17
bioRxiv (preprint)
doi.org
Relationship between prediction accuracy and feature importance reliability: An empirical and theoretical study
Jianzhong Chen
L.Q.R. Ooi
Leon Qi Rong Ooi
Trevor Wei Kiat Tan
Shaoshi Zhang
Jingwei Li
Christopher L. Asplund
Simon B. Eickhoff
Danilo Bzdok
Avram J. Holmes
B.T. Thomas Yeo
2023-03-06
NeuroImage (published)
doi.org
The end game: respecting major sources of population diversity
Jakub Kopal
Lucina Q. Uddin
Danilo Bzdok
2023-03-03
Nature Methods (published)
doi.org
Rare CNVs and phenome-wide profiling highlight brain structural divergence and phenotypical convergence
Jakub Kopal
Kuldeep Kumar
Karin Saltoun
Claudia Modenato
Clara A. Moreau
Sandra Martin-Brevet
Guillaume Huguet
Martineau Jean-Louis
Charles-Olivier Martin
C.O. Martin
Zohra Saci
Nadine Younis
Petra Tamer
Elise Douard
Anne M. Maillard
Borja Rodriguez-Herreros
Aurélie Pain
Sonia Richetin
Leila Kushan
Ana I. Silva … (see 13 more)
Marianne B.M. van den Bree
David E.J. Linden
M. J. Owen
Jeremy Hall
Sarah Lippé
Bogdan Draganski
Ida E. Sønderby
Ole A. Andreassen
David C. Glahn
Paul M. Thompson
Carrie E. Bearden
Sébastien Jacquemont
Danilo Bzdok
2023-03-02
Nature human behaviour (published)
doi.org