Christoph von der Malsburg


Christoph von der Malsburg is a German physicist and neuroscientist.

Early life

von der Malsburg obtained his PhD with a concentration in elementary particle physics at CERN and the University of Heidelberg in 1970.

Career

He joined the neurobiology department of the Max-Planck-Institute for Biophysical Chemistry in Göttingen. He remained there until 1987, when he became a professor of Computer Science, Neuroscience, Physics and Psychology at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles. In 1990, he founded the Institut für Neuroinformatik at Ruhr-University Bochum, together with Werner von Seelen. He commuted between the two institutions until 2007, when he joined the Frankfurt Institute for Advanced Studies as a Senior Fellow.
Von der Malsburg co-founded two companies and received a number of awards. He is a member of the scientific advisory board of the Human Brain Project and one of the members of the founding board of Mindfire Foundation, of which he also heads the neuroscience board.

Brain Theory

His research interests focused on processes of organization in the brain with emphasis on the structure and function of the visual system. His publications concerning the theory of self-organization of regular fiber projections in the visual system made him a pioneer of this field. He is known for his criticism of the theory of neural networks. He claimed that the generally accepted view fails because of the binding problem. To solve it he formulated the Dynamic Link Architecture, a system of rapidly switching network fragments, as applied to facial recognition.

Recognition