Abstract
The human organism is not a set of separate systems. Brain activity, heart, breath and movement form a dense network of interactions, and that network is in turn entangled with its environment — with the rhythms, demands and people around it. In the Human Network Lab in Toruń we work on how such a system holds together, and what happens to it when the demands change. We study how brain networks reorganise under cognitive load and during learning, what geometry underlies that reorganisation, how rhythm and entrainment can be used to perturb brain–body coordination, and what the brain and the body do as people enter and leave flow states. In this talk, four of us will present our current lines of research, each from a different perspective, together with ideas for projects we would like to develop with RITMO and/or with MishMash Centre for AI and Creativity. We come above all to look for places where the two groups can strengthen each other, and we would like to use the discussion to find out where that could lead.
Bios
Karolina Finc
Karolina Finc is a cognitive scientist specialising in network neuroscience and brain–body interaction. She is an Assistant Professor at the Institute of Advanced Studies, Nicolaus Copernicus University in Toruń, where she leads the Human Network Lab. She received her PhD in physical sciences in 2019 for work on how human brain networks reorganise during working-memory training. She has worked as a visiting researcher at the University of Pennsylvania, Stanford University, the Max Planck Institute for Human Development in Berlin, RITMO in Oslo, and the University of Barcelona. Her research asks how the functional architecture of the brain reconfigures over time, what network geometry underlies that reconfiguration, and how the brain interacts with the body. She loves to sing, play analog synthesizers, link distinct concepts in science, and improvise in every domain of her life.
Adam Lewartowski
Adam Bartłomiej Lewartowski is a musician and PhD candidate at the Interdisciplinary Doctoral School of Social Sciences, Nicolaus Copernicus University in Toruń. He studied jazz guitar at the Academy of Music in Katowice and cultural studies at the University of Łódź, toured extensively as bassist with the band L.Stadt, and has served as band leader for singer-songwriter Iza Lach. Alongside this he has a long-standing practice in frame drumming, including its pedagogy of polyrhythm — hands-on expertise that now feeds directly into his research design. His doctoral project builds immersive virtual-reality environments for polyrhythmic training with visual, auditory and haptic feedback, asking how learning competing rhythms shapes motor coordination and the experience of flow; it is funded by a National Science Centre PRELUDIUM grant (2026–2029) and developed in collaboration with the RITMO Centre at the University of Oslo. In 2026 he founded SOMATAKT, a university spin-off translating rhythm-based training into virtual-reality tools for neurorehabilitation and flow optimization.
Luís Alexandre
Luís Alexandre is a Full Professor at the Department of Informatics, Universidade da Beira Interior in Covilhã, Portugal. He holds a BSc in Physics and Applied Mathematics, an MSc and a PhD in Electrical Engineering and Computers, and a Habilitation in Informatics, and has worked with neural networks and computer vision, and their many applications, for over thirty years. He also works on pattern recognition. His current research runs along two lines: how the human brain processes information, and reinforcement and imitation learning for robotics, for which his lab keeps a Unitree G1 humanoid robot. Between September and November 2026 he is a visiting professor at the Human Network Lab in Toruń, working with the group on polyrhythms, networks of musical structure, and brain–body interaction.
Paweł Olszewski
Paweł Olszewski is an entrepreneur and CTO, musician, and creative coder. He graduated from the Management Department of the University of Łódź, Poland, and in 1997 co-founded AMG.net, a software company where he built and led a team of 150 software engineers. After completing a jazz course at Jazzschule Berlin, he joined Iza Lach's music project in Łódź as guitarist and backing vocalist, playing over 100 gigs with the band in Poland and internationally. He co-founded Bajkonur, a music incubator, rehearsal space, and event venue in Łódź, hosting concerts, music courses, micro-festivals, Startup Weekend, and other events. He later co-founded Gabi, a startup based in the SF Bay Area, as CTO. He is currently a creative coder focused on TouchDesigner for art installations and VJing, and, as a hobby, sings in an Orthodox church choir.