Question: what gave you inspiration for your work?

Martha Havenith answered on 23 Jun 2015:

One of my inspirations is actually my family – most of them are musicians, so I kind of see the brain as a big orchestra where every neuron plays its part. That makes me better at thinking about dynamic changes in activity, and how to describe them in the brain.
My first boss in my undergrad internship (and later in my Ph.D.) was a big inspiration too. We used to discuss a lot about what we DON’T know about the brain and how we have to try to think differently about it, and make as few assumptions as possible. For example, neuroscientists often ‘count’ the amount of activity in a neuron or a group of neurons – and then we assume that more brain activity means that this group of neurons is somehow very important or very involved in a certain task. But that may just be because as humans we think of ‘more’ as ‘more important’ or ‘more powerful’. And we like counting things. Whether the brain cares about ‘more activity’… we don’t know yet. I really love the challenge of trying to think without those hidden beliefs as much as possible.