The ISBGroup Blog

On September 1–2, our team attended the Strategic Research Area in Forensic Sciences (SoFo) Annual Meeting 2025, held at the scenic Rimforsa Strand. This lunch-to-lunch event brought together researchers, professionals, and collaborators from across Sweden to share insights, foster new connections, and explore the future of forensic science.

Presentations from our group

This year, our group contributed with two presentations highlighting ongoing work within forensic toxicology and post-mortem analysis:

William Lövfors, with support from Henrik Podéus, presented the alcohol model developed to aid in estimating alcohol intake in forensic investigations. The model represents a valuable step toward improving the accuracy and reliability of alcohol-related case assessments.

Rasmus Magnusson shared his research on estimating time since death using post-mortem interval (PMI) data and machine learning models – a project currently under review in Nature Communications. His talk sparked great interest and discussion around the application of advanced computational methods in forensic medicine.

Collaboration and future directions

Beyond the formal sessions, the meeting offered many opportunities for discussion, idea exchange, and networking. Participants engaged in lively conversations around potential research overlaps, interdisciplinary approaches, and strategies for expanding SoFo’s scope in the coming years.

The meeting reaffirmed the strong sense of community within SoFo and underscored the exciting directions in which forensic science is moving—through collaboration, innovation, and shared scientific curiosity.

We thank the organizers for an inspiring and well-arranged event, and we look forward to continuing the conversations and collaborations sparked at Rimforsa Strand.

Maria-Anna Sotiropoulou held a session on digital twins, explaining their relevance in various fields, including healthcare, at the “Girls in Biomedical Engineering” workshop on 19^th of November at LiU Campus Valla. The aim of the workshop was to inspire and foster interest among young women aged 17-18 in engineering, technology and their application in real-world scenarios, particularly in health and wellness.

After the presentation, the girls participated in a hands-on activity where they measured their blood pressure using digital sphygmomanometers (automatic blood pressure monitors). They entered these readings, along with their anthropometric data – such as height, weight etc.- into their digital twin model. The model was designed to simulate and analyze potential stroke risks and it also included simulations of weight changes and blood pressure fluctuations, allowing the participants to visualize how these factors could impact their health over time.

In November 2025 Gunnar Cedersund and Maria-Anna Sotiropoulou presented the Digital Twins at Kvalitetsmässan (Quality Fair Conference) – an annual three-day event that brings together professionals from municipal, regional and government sectors to focus on advancing quality and efficiency in public services. As the Digital Twins have the potential to revolutionize various industries, particularly in municipal and regional planning, Gunnar and Maria-Anna’s presentation contributed with important insights.

Maria-Anna demonstrated how Digital Twins are being integrated into various sectors of society. For example, Norlandia, with whom we shared a booth at Kvalitetsmässan’s exhibition, is currently utilizing the Digital Twin technology to monitor and better understand the health and well-being of their employees. Looking ahead, they plan to extend this technology to enhance patient care, creating virtual models of individual patients to improve personalized healthcare management and optimize treatment plans.

Held since 1989, the fair provides a platform for in-depth discussions, international perspectives and debates on pressing social issues. It serves as an inspiring space for innovation, business development and the introduction of new smart welfare services. The fair aims to foster an environment where knowledge exchange leads to practical tools and insights for improving public sector services.

In the autumn of 2025, the Lev Skönare team (an enterprise run by the ISB Group) was invited to Norlandia Elder Care’s annual management conference to present our concept. We are now launching Hälsoresan (“Health Journey“) – a development project for approximately 2,400 employees of Norlandia Äldreomsorg – for the first time with digital support and AI.

Norlandia is the first in the world to offer all employees a digital health twin, developed by Associate Professor Gunnar Cedersund at Linköping University. The twin collects and visualizes health data on organs, metabolism, and the immune system, linked to lifestyle, and inspires small, sustainable changes based on scientific evidence.

During the conference, we demonstrated the app and the project plan, emphasizing that all personal data is fully protected and only anonymized summaries can be viewed by the company.

Discussions with managers were important: some were cautiously skeptical, while others welcomed the focus on small, everyday health habits such as walking, gradual changes in diet and exercise, and long-term sustainability. The goal is to give all employees the opportunity, step by step, to have more energy, feel joy, and foster well-being in their everyday lives.

We have the pleasure to announce that Maria-Anna Sotiropoulou will be the new contact person for STRATIF-AI.

STRATIF-AI is our flagship project to improve prevention, treatment, and rehabilitation of stroke patients using digital twins and AI. STRATIF-AI has received funding over four years by Horizon Europe, the EU’s key funding programme for research and innovation.

Read more about STRATIF-AI on its homepage

Maria-Anna holds a B.Sc. in Computer Science and Biomedical Informatics and an M.Sc. in Protein Biotechnology. She is currently a Research Assistant at Linköping’s University Department of Biomedical Engineering (IMT), working in the Integrative Systems Biology Group. Her research interests include developing advanced modeling tools for studying intracellular metabolic changes in neurodegenerative diseases, as well as cancer-neuron modeling. She has experience in both experimental and computational research, which complements her interdisciplinary background.

For any administrative inquiries related to STRATIF-AI, from now on, please reach out to both the coordinator, Gunnar Cedersund, and Maria-Anna.

Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) is one of the most powerful tools in neuroscience, but what does the measured signal really reflect? Traditionally, the fMRI signal has been assumed to mainly reflect excitatory neuron activity. However, recent findings by Nicholas Sundqvist and Henrik Podéus of the ISB Group suggest that inhibitory interneurons play a much more significant role.

Using a model-driven meta-analysis approach, we analysed data across several different studies, revealing that:

• Less than 20% of the fMRI BOLD signal comes from excitatory neurons
• A dominant 50–80% arises from inhibitory interneurons
  

Our model offers a unified mechanistic explanation for why fMRI responses sometimes appear contradictory across experiments. For example, the model provides a plausible mechanism that result in a biphasic vascular response that emerge only under high intensity stimulation.

Taken together, these results point towards a new consensus view: inhibitory interneurons, not excitatory neurons, are the primary drivers of fMRI signals.

We have recently published a manuscript about these findings in the journal Computers in Medicine and Biology – a leading publication in computational biology and medical informatics.