Giuseppe Chindemi

ETH AI Center, OAT X11

Andreasstrasse 5

8092 Zürich

Giuseppe Chindemi is a postdoctoral researcher at the ETH AI Center, mentored by Benjamin Grewe and Richard Hahnloser (ETH/UZH) and Giorgia Ramponi (UZH). His research focuses on learning algorithms in biological and artificial neural networks, currently exploring hierarchical control and planning in autonomous agents.

He completed his PhD at the Blue Brain Project under Henry Markram (EPFL) and Eilif Muller (UdeM/Mila), investigating synaptic plasticity through large-scale simulations of neocortical circuits on high-performance computing systems (Mira, ALCF; Blue Brain 5, CSCS). Prior to joining the ETH AI Center, he was a postdoc in the lab of Camilla Bellone (UNIGE), where he developed LISBET, an open-source toolkit for discovering social behaviors in pose-tracking data.

Research interests: reinforcement learning, hierarchical control, multi-agent systems, planning, computational neuroscience

news

Sep 01, 2025	Joined the ETH AI Center as a postdoctoral fellow, working on learning algorithms in biological and artificial neural networks.

selected publications

Nat. Commun.
A calcium-based plasticity model for predicting long-term potentiation and depression in the neocortex

Giuseppe Chindemi, Marwan Abdellah, Oren Amsalem, and 17 more authors

Nature Communications, 2022

Abs DOI Bib HTML

Pyramidal cells (PCs) form the backbone of the layered structure of the neocortex, and plasticity of their synapses is thought to underlie learning in the brain. However, such long-term synaptic changes have been experimentally characterized between only a few types of PCs, posing a significant barrier for studying neocortical learning mechanisms. Here we introduce a model of synaptic plasticity based on data-constrained postsynaptic calcium dynamics, and show in a neocortical microcircuit model that a single parameter set is sufficient to unify the available experimental findings on long-term potentiation (LTP) and long-term depression (LTD) of PC connections. In particular, we find that the diverse plasticity outcomes across the different PC types can be explained by cell-type-specific synaptic physiology, cell morphology and innervation patterns, without requiring type-specific plasticity. Generalizing the model to in vivo extracellular calcium concentrations, we predict qualitatively different plasticity dynamics from those observed in vitro. This work provides a first comprehensive null model for LTP/LTD between neocortical PC types in vivo, and an open framework for further developing models of cortical synaptic plasticity.
@article{chindemi_calcium-based_2022, title = {A calcium-based plasticity model for predicting long-term potentiation and depression in the neocortex}, author = {Chindemi, Giuseppe and Abdellah, Marwan and Amsalem, Oren and Benavides-Piccione, Ruth and Delattre, Vincent and Doron, Michael and Ecker, András and Jaquier, Aurélien T. and King, James and Kumbhar, Pramod and Monney, Caitlin and Perin, Rodrigo and Rössert, Christian and Tuncel, Anil M. and Van Geit, Werner and DeFelipe, Javier and Graupner, Michael and Segev, Idan and Markram, Henry and Muller, Eilif B.}, journal = {Nature Communications}, volume = {13}, number = {1}, pages = {3038}, year = {2022}, doi = {10.1038/s41467-022-30214-w}, url = {https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-022-30214-w}, }

arXiv

LISBET: a machine learning model for the automatic segmentation of social behavior motifs

Giuseppe Chindemi, Benoit Girard, and Camilla Bellone

2023

Bib HTML

@misc{chindemi2023lisbet,
  title = {LISBET: a machine learning model for the automatic segmentation of social behavior motifs},
  author = {Chindemi, Giuseppe and Girard, Benoit and Bellone, Camilla},
  year = {2023},
  archiveprefix = {arXiv},
  primaryclass = {cs.CV},
  url = {https://arxiv.org/abs/2311.04069},
}

Cell

Reconstruction and simulation of neocortical microcircuitry

Henry Markram, Eilif Muller, Srikanth Ramaswamy, and 79 more authors

Cell, 2015

Abs DOI Bib HTML

@article{markram_reconstruction_2015,
  title = {Reconstruction and simulation of neocortical microcircuitry},
  author = {Markram, Henry and Muller, Eilif and Ramaswamy, Srikanth and Reimann, Michael W. and Abdellah, Marwan and Sanchez, Carlos Aguado and Ailamaki, Anastasia and Alonso-Nanclares, Lidia and Antille, Nicolas and Arsever, Selim and Kahou, Guy Antoine Atenekeng and Berger, Thomas K. and Bilgili, Ahmet and Buncic, Nenad and Chalimourda, Athanassia and Chindemi, Giuseppe and Courcol, Jean-Denis and Delalondre, Fabien and Delattre, Vincent and Druckmann, Shaul and Dumusc, Raphael and Dynes, James and Eilemann, Stefan and Gal, Eyal and Gevaert, Michael Emiel and Ghobril, Jean-Pierre and Gidon, Albert and Graham, Joe W. and Gupta, Anirudh and Haenel, Valentin and Hay, Etay and Heinis, Thomas and Hernando, Juan B. and Hines, Michael and Kanari, Lida and Keller, Daniel and Kenyon, John and Khazen, Georges and Kim, Yihwa and King, James G. and Kisvarday, Zoltan and Kumbhar, Pramod and Lasserre, Sébastien and Le Bé, Jean-Vincent and Magalhães, Bruno R. C. and Merchán-Pérez, Angel and Meystre, Julie and Morrice, Benjamin Roy and Muller, Jeffrey and Muñoz-Céspedes, Alberto and Muralidhar, Shruti and Muthurasa, Keerthan and Nachbaur, Daniel and Newton, Taylor H. and Nolte, Max and Ovcharenko, Aleksandr and Palacios, Juan and Pastor, Luis and Perin, Rodrigo and Ranjan, Rajnish and Riachi, Imad and Rodríguez, José-Rodrigo and Riquelme, Juan Luis and Rössert, Christian and Sfyrakis, Konstantinos and Shi, Ying and Shillcock, Julian C. and Silberberg, Gilad and Silva, Ricardo and Tauheed, Farhan and Telefont, Martin and Toledo-Rodriguez, Maria and Tränkler, Thomas and Van Geit, Werner and Díaz, Jafet Villafranca and Walker, Richard and Wang, Yun and Zaninetta, Stefano M. and DeFelipe, Javier and Hill, Sean L. and Segev, Idan and Schürmann, Felix},
  journal = {Cell},
  volume = {163},
  number = {2},
  pages = {456--492},
  year = {2015},
  doi = {10.1016/j.cell.2015.09.029},
  url = {https://www.cell.com/cell/fulltext/S0092-8674(15)01191-5},
}