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Neural basis of behavioral choice and sequences – DECISIONSEQ
The complexity of the interactions between an organism and its environment creates a variety of behavioral choices. It is essential for survival across the animal kingdom to make appropriate choices depending on the environmental context and the internal state and this process often goes awry in hum
Linking metabolism and cognition: new regulatory pathways involving GABAergic neurons – METACOGNITION
Psychiatric and metabolic disorders present a high co-morbidity suggesting that the aetiology of both disorders depends on common physiological mechanisms. The existence of common genetic and molecular regulatory mechanism is reinforced by the fact that several genetic conditions, such as Prader-Wil
Cortical computation of expectancy to highly predictable tactile stimuli – Expect
The fundamental mode of operation of the brain is not to be driven by external stimuli but instead it is an active process which continuously compares the sensory flow to inner expectations; perception is therefore built by highly selective operations where the current body state, action, context, g
Flexibility and neural dynamics of conscious access – FlexConscious
At the heart of our cognition is a very intriguing divide: even when we are awake, our brain can process external stimulation either consciously (“I have perceived it”) or non-consciously (“I have not perceived anything”). In the past forty years, major advances have been made in the identification
Epigenome dysregulation in link with substance use and mental health in young people – EPI_young
Epigenetic regulation is crucial for neuronal functioning and synaptic plasticity and epigenetic mechanisms were consistently reported as highly involved in pathophysiology of psychiatric disorders. Epigenetic dysregulation could account for the high heterogeneity of these disorders, their phenotypi
The brain connectome as a biomarker and therapeutic target – CONNECTOME
Personalized medicine for brain disorders holds great promises. Although we know that brain disorders are associated with structural and functional connectome alterations, it is unclear if the latter are at the dysfunction’s origin or a consequence thereof; and thus we do not know if we can exploit
Dynamics of Hippocampo-Cortical Networks in Learning and Memory – DyNet
The ‘two-stage’ theory of memory posits that memory traces initially formed in the hippocampus during the waking state are progressively transferred to the neocortex during sleep, where they are stored and available for long term recall. Candidate target neocortical areas include the medial prefront
Optimal predictive coding in a mammalian retina – OPC
A major challenge in sensory neuroscience is to understand the computations performed by different neurons within a given sensory area. For example, in the retina, previous work has shown that there are more than 30 types of retinal ganglion cell (RGC), each of which respond to a very specific aspec
Investigation of the role of aquaporin (AQP4) in regulating extracellular space during brain remodeling using MRI and 3D-STED microcopy – NanoSpace
Traumatic brain injury (TBI) is the first cause of disability and death in Europe among children. TBI entails significant complications for memory and sensorimotor functions several years after the initial event. These long-term effects are not only caused by local destruction of brain tissue and bu
MAGNETIC RESONNANCE IMAGING OF THE GLYMPHATIC SYSTEM IN HUMAN – MrGLY
The proposal is based on the postulate that the dynamic volume change of astrocytes contributes to perivascular cerebral spinal fluid (CSF) flow regulation, recently described as the glymphatic system. We thus postulate that those cell volume changes could be monitored through Water Diffusion Magnet
Plasiticity in motor learning and tending – Mopla
The process of motor adaptation allows the motor system to operate in a constantly changing world where internal (muscles, proprioception, etc ...) and external (object properties impact of actions) contingencies fluctuate over time. The mechanisms of motor adaptation are also altered or recruited i
Brain-liver axis: metabolic link and therapeutic target in Parkinson’s disease – MetaPark
Aging is recognized as the greatest risk factor for developing idiopathic Parkinson’s disease (PD). However, this axiom is solely supported by epidemiological observations. Several processes such as the gradual loss of nigral dopamine neurons and the accumulation the protein alpha-synuclein occur du
Grid cells contribution to distance coding and update of cognitive maps – GRIDSPACES
Navigation using an internal representation of the environment or a cognitive map requires allothetic information about the spatial arrangement of the landmarks and idiothetic (self-motion) information. Grid cells in the medial entorhinal cortex (MEC) exhibit a striking grid-like firing pattern that
MAternal Diabetes and neuropsychiAtric vulnerability in offspring: role of DNA methylation – MADAM
Co-morbidities associated with diabetes represent a significant human and financial burden. There is increasing evidence that co-morbidities such as depression, share pathophysiological and mechanistic origins with diabetes type 2 (T2D). Indeed, T2D is associated with high levels of depression, whic
Dynamic Exploration of neural Circuits Involved during Decision-making (DECID) – DECID
Choosing to do something because the perceived benefit outweighs the estimated cost is something people do routinely. In this proposal, we will test the hypothesis that pre-stimulus brain oscillatory activity eventually influence subjects’ decisions. This is important since classically, baseline neu
The dual-system hypothesis of anosognosia: the interplay between emotional processing and self-monitoring in neurodegenerative patients – NOT_AWARE
The ability to appraise our own performance is a unique component of human functioning. It is impaired in brain diseases responsible for anosognosia, resulting in poor self-appraisal of one's own deficits. Anosognosia negatively impacts on capacity issues, such as treatment compliance and the patien
GOAL-DIRECTED PLANNING IN DENTATE NETWORKS – DG-Goal
The hippocampal formation supports our sense of place through the presence of spatially-modulated firing of hippocampal place cells and entorhinal grid cells. We depend on this network for recognizing and remembering the environment. As such, this system supports one of the most fundamental brain fu
Neuronal circuits of safety learning – SAFENET
A central endeavour of modern neuroscience is to understand the neural basis of learning and how the selection of distinct circuits modulates experience-dependent changes in behavior. Decades of research allowed a global understanding of the computations occurring in hard-wired networks during assoc
Navigation beyond the hippocampus: Computations supporting egocentric trajectories into an allocentric world. – NaviGPS
Wayfinding is essential to every living creature. Where I am? Where am I going to? How do I get there? Those are questions an individual faces many times a day. Indeed spatial cognition offers a framework that tackles a challenging and exciting problem: how does the brain process multimodal input to
From temporal memory to temporal expectancy: A focus on Hippocampus-Striatum processing – TimeMemory
Time management - planning actions to be executed in time, or anticipating future events in detail - is an essential feature of our everyday life. A typical example of this capacity allows us to set up an upcoming appointment: we’re able to take into account the duration of a number of things we wan
A brain effort system in monkeys? – NEUROEFFORT
Numerous aspects of behavior rely upon the trade-off between effort costs and reward benefits. By comparison with reward, however, effort remains poorly understood. NEUREFFORT aims at identifying a Brain Effort System, a specific set of brain regions mobilized by upcoming physical or mental challeng
Horizontal Connectivity and Prediction of Coherences in the Integration of Contour and Retinal Flow in the Primary Visual Cortex – Horizontal-V1
The Horizontal-V1 project aims at understanding the emergence of sensory predictions linking local shape attributes (orientation, contour) to global indices of movement (direction, speed, trajectory) at the earliest stage of cortical processing (primary visual cortex, i.e. V1). We will study how the