Journée Nationale des Neurosciences
Published on February 22, 2010
Campagne de sensibilisation grand public sur la place Antonin Poncet Samedi 13 Mars
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News
 published on March 5, 2010 Neurocomp10
Date: October 6-8th, 2010
Place: Espace Tête d'Or - Centre des Congrès
The fourth French conference on Computational Neurosciences, Neurocomp 10 will be hosted in Lyon from October 6th until October 8th. This series of conferences were organised under Neurocomp supervision. Computational Neurosciences study the mechanisms that enable our cognitive capacities. This approach requires a constructive integration of academic domains, from neurons to behaviour, from biology to software simulation and modeling. This seminar favours scientific exchanges and leads to interdisciplinary collaborations between teams from neurosciences, information technology, physics, and mathematics. Guest speakers this year are: Stanislas Dehaene (Paris), Wolfgang Maass (Graz), Mickael J. Franck (Providence USA), Rodney Douglas (Zurich).
For further details, click HERE.
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 published on March 2, 2010 New hypothesis about the function of mirror neurons in language understanding.
Guest speaker: Toshio Inui from the Kyoto University
Date: Monday 8th March, in the SBRI Conference room at 11 am
"We investigate how the higher-level cognitive functions of human beings are realized, from both experimental and theoretical approach. The target functions are visual pattern recognition, cognition by embodiment, integration of multimodal sensory information, verbal / non-verbal communication, etc..., which are challenged by pschological experiments and computer simulation of neural networks. We also investigate the neural basis of such functions by brain imaging using fMRI/MEG." |
 published on February 25, 2010 Cortical recovery following retinal gene therapy in a canine model of achromatopsia.
Guest speaker: Guy Gingras
Date: March 2nd in the SBRI conference room at 11
Guy Gingras, who has just arrived in Lyon, has been awarded a two-year fellowship from the NeuroDis Foundation to work on a project in Howard Cooper's team. Originally from Quebec Canada, he obtained his PhD from Dalhousie University, and has done post-docs at Wake Forest University and University of Pennsylvania. Following Guy's presentation Howard will give a short outline of the research project on the use of melanopsin to restore vision in a model of photoreceptor invalidated primate. |
 published on February 24, 2010 7th Forum of European Neuroscience Societies
Place: Amsterdam
Date: July 3-7, 2010
FENS Forum is the main European Neuroscience meeting covering disciplines from molecular techniques to clinical studies and from bench to bedside. A dense programme of plenary lectures, special event lectures and symposia as well as a series of oral sessions and poster sessions has become the popular standard of the FENS forum. Since its establishment in 1998, the biennial event has become increasingly attractive for neuroscientists all over the world.
For further information, click HERE. |
 published on February 22, 2010 Understanding basic mechanisms of neurodevelopment disorders
Date: June 6-9, 2010
Place: Estoril, Portugal
For further details, click HERE.
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 published on February 22, 2010 In vivo Fiberoptic Fluorescence microscopy for small animal research
Speaker: Tonya Coulthard
Date: Monday 8th march, 4pm
Introducing a revolutionary solution for in vivo, in situ cellular imaging for small animal researchers. This easy-to-use platform allows real-time imaging of cell biology and physiology inside a living animal.
Register online HERE. |
 published on February 1, 2010 Guest speaker: Tatiana Selchenkova from the Pavlov Institute in Saint Petersburg
Date: Thursday February 18th, 11 am in the SBRI conference room
Investigation of the dependence of visual evoked potentials on difficulty of a discrimination task and stimulus presentation time.
This presentation is more targeted at people from the Departments of Integrative Neurosciences and of Chronobiology. |
 published on December 3, 2009 Guest speaker: David Price - Genes and development research group - Centres for Integrative Physiology and Neuroscience Research, University of Edinburgh
Date: Tuesday 15 December - SBRI conference room, at 10.30
Development of the forebrain "I have studied the development of the brain particularly the cerebral neocortex, for the past 20 years. I have taken a multidisciplinary approach, using a range of neuroanatomical, electrophysiological, cell biological, molecular biological, transplantation, genetic and transgenic methods to analyse mechanisms regulating events that occur during the pre- and post-natal development of cortex in various species." |
 published on December 1, 2009 Guest speaker: Paul Verschure - Synthetic, Perceptive, Emotive and Cognitive Systems Group(SPECS) - University of Barcelona
Date: Thursday 3 December - SBRI conference room at 2pm
Real-world perceptual systems: the temporal population code and gestalt encoding |
 published on November 24, 2009 Guest speaker: Robert Lucas from the department of Neurosciences at the University of Manchester
Date: Friday November 27th at 11 AM in the SBRI conference room
Visual and non-visual photoreception in vertebrates. As neuroscientists we study the brain and wider nervous system from its individual neuronal and glial component parts up to its activity as an integrated whole. We use this information to explain normal behaviours, to determine the origins and mechanisms of dysfunction and degeneration, and to devise new treatments. The Neuroscience Research group has strong links with the Faculty of Medicine and Human Sciences, local hospitals and other research centres. These links are facilitated by the Neuroscience Research Institute, that brings together neuroscientists in Manchester and across the North West. |
 published on November 24, 2009 Guest speaker: Agnès Lukaszewicz - David Anderson Research Group - Caltech, California, USA
Date: Wednesday December 16th in the SBRI Conference room
Control of Neural Stem cells to neurogenic precursors transition by Cyclin Ds In Dr David Anderson’s lab at Caltech, I have been interested in deciphering molecular mechanisms that control neural fate specification during development. Systematic characterization of changes in gene expression in this domain, shed light on CyclinDs, suggesting that they may play a role in regulating the homeostasis of the developing spinal cord. We have shown that CyclinD1 and D2 are expressed in distinct subset of precursors, CyclinD1 expression being spatially and temporally correlated with neurogenesis. This led us to hypothesize that CyclinD1 may regulate neurogenesis, whereas CyclinD2 may regulate the maintenance of the NSC. Loss- and gain-of-function experiments allowed us to demonstrate that CyclinD1 play a key role in modulating neurogenesis. Furthermore, we showed that CyclinD1 re-expression is sufficient for glial-restricted progenitors to regain their neurogenic potential when transplanted into a permissive environment. Importantly, we demonstrated that CyclinD1 function as neurogenic factor is structurally independent of its function as a cell cycle regulator. We have shown that Notch signaling can be modulated by CyclinD expression in a very specific and meaningful way: CyclinD1 is necessary for Hes6 expression (a neurogenic effector of Notch pathway), whereas CyclinD2 is necessary for Hes5 expression (effector of canonical Notch pathway). Furthermore, we have demonstrated that CyclinD1 and D2 loss-of-function can be rescued respectively by Hes6 and Hes5, demonstrating that Cyclin Ds and Hes proteins belong to a common molecular pathway. |
 published on November 19, 2009 Title: Empreinte parentale et Aide Médicale à la Procréation : Evaluation de l’impact de différents facteurs sur la mise en place et/ou le maintien du marquage différentiel des gènes soumis à empreinte dans des ovocytes et des embryons humains issus de l’AMP.
Date: Tuesday, December 22nd at 2PM - Rockfeller building, médiathèque de la faculté de médecine et de pharmacie à Rockefeller.
Jury: - Dr Annick LEFEVRE - Pr Pierre COUBLE - Pr Johan SMITZ - Dr Corinne COTINOT - Pr Jean-François GUERIN - Dr Patricia FAUQUE
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 published on November 17, 2009 Guest speaker: Ivo Vanzetta - Team "Dynamique de la Vision et de l'Action" INCM CNRS UMR 6193, Université de la Méditerranée Aix-Marseille II
Date: Monday, November 30th - SBRI conference room - 11 AM
Disentangling specific temporal frequency channels of motion processing in awake monkey V4 using color and luminance
Evidence both from both psychophysics (Gegenfurtner and Hawken, 1995) and functional imaging (Tootel et al., 2004) challenges the classical concept of separate motion and color processing, that has long been a cornerstone in the argument for separate pathways. Alternatively, it has been proposed that both motion and color information is being processed along two channels, neither of which is color-blind or motion-insensitive (Gegenfurtner and Hawken, 1996): The first one, specialized in processing rapid movement, has a high sensitivity to luminance-defined stimuli, depends only weakly on contrast and processes color variations like small variations in luminance. Based on neuronal data, MT, the first area fully belonging to the dorsal stream, has been proposed as a neuronal substrate for this channel. The second channel, specialized for slow movements, has a high sensitivity to color contrast and codes movement in a highly contrast dependent manner. Concerning the neuronal substrate of his second channel, the question has been risen of whether a suitable candidate might not be V4, being the earliest visual area that fully belongs to the ventral stream, which deals with object identification and is therefore optimized for the extraction of the objects’ surface characteristics, such as color and texture. |
 published on November 16, 2009 Title: Characterization of the spectral properties of Melanopsin
Date: Friday, November 27th 2PM - Building B13 Conference room
Jury: - Dr Howard Cooper from Inserm U846 - Pr Yves ROSSETTI from the University of Lyon I - Pr Robert LUCAS from the University of Manchester, UK - Dr Roelof HUT from the University of Groningen, NL - Dr François ROUYER from CNRS, UPR 2216, Gif-sur-Yvette
Abstract: All mammals including humans were previously thought to only possess outer retina rod and cone photoreceptors that have evolved from an ancestral “ciliary” photoreceptor cell. In addition to rods and cones, a third class of photoreceptive cells expressing the photopigment melanopsin has recently been described in the inner retinal mammalian ganglion cells. Melanopsin shows amino acid sequence homology and signal transduction mechanisms similar to the “rhabdomeric” photoreceptors found in invertebrates such as the fly. In line with this hypothesis, melanopsin has recently been shown to display in vitro bistable properties in which light drives both the photosensory response and photopigment regeneration, enabling a sustained response to light and resistance to bleaching. Using a strategy of spectral stimulations originally designed to demonstrate bistability in invertebrate photopigments, I have shown, during my thesis, that previous light exposure can alter subsequent responses to light and that the obtained response functions are typical of invertebrate rather than vertebrate photopigments. This bistable properties, first demonstrated in different physiological and behavioral assays in the mouse, also translate to human melanopsin dependant pupillary responses to light. Modelling these responses to invertebrate photopigment templates suggests that the human retina utilises fly-like mechanisms in the regulation of melanopsin dependent non-visual responses to light. |
 published on November 10, 2009 Topic: "Role of G1 phase regulators during corticogenesis."
Date: Tuesday, December 15th - SBRI conference room
Jury: - Dr Colette DEHAY from Inserm U846
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 published on November 10, 2009 Topic: "Rôle des régulateurs de la phase G1 du cycle cellulaire dans la corticogénèse."
Date: Tuesday, December 8th at 2.00 PM - SBRI Conference room
Jury: - Dr. Colette DEHAY
Abstract: La cytoarchitecture du cortex est déterminée au cours de l’embryogénèse par le taux de production neuronale. Ce taux est finement régulé de façon spatiotemporelle et aboutit à l’histogénèse de couches distinctes. Deux paramètres déterminent le taux de production neuronale des précurseurs corticaux : la durée du cycle cellulaire et le mode de division (divisions prolifératives et divisions différenciatives). Les données publiées indiquent que l’expression de certains régulateurs du cycle cellulaire, en particulier ceux régulant la transition G1/S, comme les cyclines D1 et E1 et les CKIs (p16, p21 et p27), pourraient jouer un rôle déterminant dans l’équilibre prolifération/différenciation des précurseurs corticaux. |
 published on November 2, 2009 Programme Blanc: "Le programme Blanc de l'ANR a pour but de donner une impulsion significative à des projets scientifiques ambitieux qui se positionnent favorablement dans la compétition internationale et qui présentent des objectifs originaux, en rupture avec les itinéraires de recherche traditionnels. Ce programme est ouvert à toutes les thématiques et à tous types de travaux de recherche, depuis les projets les plus académiques jusqu'aux recherches menées dans le cadre de partenariats avec les acteurs socio-économiques. L'intervention de l'ANR dans le financement d'un projet sélectionné dans le cadre de cet appel à projets devra être déterminante pour la réalisation dudit projet et visera clairement à renforcer la compétitivité internationale de la recherche scientifique française dans le secteur concerné.
Programme "Jeunes chercheurs": "Le programme a pour but de soutenir des projest de jeunes chercheurs ou enseignants-chercheurs, de façon à favoriser leur prise de resposabilité, meur permettre de développer de façon autonome une thématique propre, et de leur donner la possibilité d'exprimer rapidement leur capacité d'innovation. Ce programme concerne l'ensemble des champs de recherche, toutes disciplines confondues. Il s'agit d'identifier et de soutenir des projets scientifiques originaux portés par des jeunes chercheurs ou enseignants-chercheur ayant un emploi permanent formant éventuellement des équipes autonomes ou visant à le devenir."
DEADLINE FOR BOTH PROGRAMMES 12 JANUARY AT 1PM |
 published on October 21, 2009 Guest speaker: Anne-Marie Marzesco from Max Planck Institute of molecular cell biology and genetics, in Dresden
Date: 22/10/09 - SBRI Conference room |
 published on October 14, 2009 Guest speaker: Marie Dumont, Centre d'étude du sommeil et des rythmes biologiques, Hôpital du Sacré-Coeur de Montréal, Faculté de médecine, Université de Montréal
Date: 19/10/09 - SBRI conference room.
Des stratégies expérimentales sont actuellement sous étude afin de trouver des façons d'ajuster l'horloge biologique à un horaire éveil-sommeil inversé. Ces traitements expérimentaux incluent l'exposition à une lumière vive, l'administration de mélatonine et même un programme régulier d'exercice selon un horaire approprié. Les données disponibles sont suggèrent que ces traitements pourraient être très efficaces. Toutefois il n'a pas été démontréqu'ils pouvaient être appliqué à la situation des travailleurs de nuit. Puisque quelques jours sont nécessaires avant d'en ressentir les effets, ces stratégies ne sont pas appropriées à des rotations rapides entre quarts de jour et quarts de nuit. Il serait possible d'ajuster artificiellement l'horloge biologique à un horaire éveil-sommeil inversé, mais la plupart des travailleurs de nuit ne sont pas prêts à transférer les problèmes de leur travail de nuit à leur travail de jour, ou (pire encore) à leurs jours de congé! |
 published on October 14, 2009 Guest speaker: Prof. Dr. Wolfgang Maass, Institute for Theoritical Computer Science - Technische Universität Graz.
Date: 17/11/09 - SBRI Conference room
One may argue that it was relatively easy for evolution to create networks of neurons with large computational power, since in principle every computation can be carried out on rather simple feedforward neural networks, and the structure of the network is not even critical for that. In contrast, it was rather difficult for evolution to create brains that can learn autonomously, and can maintain stable computational function in spite of noise and various types of ongoing changes in the system. However, research results from machine learning have shown that cleverly designed circuitry can drastically improve the learning capability of an autonomous learning system. Hence I propose to understand generic cortical microcircuits, and possibly also the large scale connectivity structure of the brain, from the perspective that these architectures provide a clever scaffold for learning, in fact for a variety of learning mechanisms that act on different temporal and spatial scales |
 published on October 7, 2009 Cette thèse consiste à réaliser un programme qui permet à un robot, via une interaction fluide avec un utilisateur, d'apprendre de nouvelles connaissances qui peuvent être réutilisées. L'approche adoptée intègre le paradigme de l'énaction (autonomie, création de sens, émergence, incarnation, expérience subjective), un savoir intersubjectif (ou connaissance mutuelle), et le formalisme des modèles statistiques d'induction. Par une programmation par démonstration (PbD) et un enseignement kinesthésique, l'utilisateur manie le robot et peut lui apprendre des comportements (mouvements de pattes, de tête etc.) synchrones ou parallèles, cycliques ou acycliques. Ainsi, avec un minimum d'a priori, le système fait émerger des symboles à partir de la segmentation et la détection de régularités dans des flux de données sensori-motrices continues. Symboles ou comportements que l'utilisateur labellise et peut réutiliser. |
 published on October 6, 2009 Guest speaker: Ricardo Chavarriaga, PhD Ecole polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne
Date: 1/12/09 - Conference room U846 at 2PM
A non-invasive brain-machine interface (BMI) is a system that translates user’s intent, coded by spatiotemporal neural activity (usually EEG), into a control signal without using activity of any muscles or peripheral nerves. In this talk I will present our research aimed at the development of asynchronous BMIs. It means that users control such devices spontaneously and at their own pace, by learning to voluntarily control specific electroencephalogram (EEG) features measured from the scalp. This approach relies upon machine learning techniques to maximize the separability between different mental patterns, as well as a shared control architecture where different levels of intelligence are implemented in the robotic device in order to assist the human user in the execution of the task, |
 published on September 14, 2009 Guest speaker: Nenad Sestan, MD, PhD Department of Neurobiology Yale University School of Medicine
Date: 22 september at 11 in U846 Conference room
Our laboratory investigates how neuronal identities and synaptic circuits form during development, and how these change during evolution of the mammalian brain. Our studies focus on the frontal lobe of the cerebral cortex due to its importance in higher cognitive functions and the remarkable complexity of its neuronal phenotypes, in particular the pyramidal (projection) neurons. Pyramidal neurons occupy a central position in all cortical circuits, constituting the sole output from and the largest input system to the cortex, as well as the major target of all inputs to the cortex. Our strategy is to identify mechanisms that are important for the specification, development, and evolutionary specializations of pyramidal neurons, and to investigate their roles using a variety of molecular and genetic approaches. |
 published on September 9, 2009 Guest speaker: Neng-Wen Lo from the Dept of Animal Science and Biotechnology Tunghai University, Taiwan
Date: 15/09/09 at 11 - Conference room U846
"A progeny's gender can be determined by fertilizing an egg with the pre-selected sperm, either bearing X-chromosome or Y-chromosome. In farming industry, this application can help to increase farmers' incomes enormously, whereas, in eugenics, it can help human fight against sex-linked hereditary disorders. Nowadays, the existent sexing technologies widely used in many clinics were developed on the basis of minute physico-biochemical differences in size, charge, swimming capability, and mass between X-sperm and Y-sperm. In practical, none of these technologies is without controversy in efficacy and can be acceptably applied in all aspects. The dilemma behind the sperm-sexing technology is in that the differences in entity and in structure between the X- and Y- spermatozoa are too vague to be distinguished and have not been systematically studied at the molecular levels. To understand the differences between X- and Y-sperm in the molecular levels, we identified some target gene(s) that could potentially be utilized to distinguish X- and Y-sperm. Currently we are characterizing one of the candidate genes, Esx1, and investigating the possibility of using it as a basis to distinguish X- and Y-sperm. The other ongoing project in our lab is to characterize the hallmarks of promoter sequences. We proposed that the genetic algorithms could be used to extract consensus sequence patterns of human promoter sequence and those of non-promoter. Incorporating the extracted consensus sequence patterns with a weighted-sum approach, we developed a program, ProDictor (available at http://140.128.107.247/index.html), to predict the existence of a promoter in a query sequence. As the weighted-sum approach is quite time-consuming and unsuitable for on-line prediction. A two-phase neural network approach was further integrated to improve the prediction.
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 published on September 1, 2009 Mehdi Khamassi will be presenting a poster at Neurocomp 09, the third annual French Computational Neuroscience meeting held in Bordeaux from the 16th to the 18th of September. The conference will mainly deal with 4 topics: Each day of the conference will deal with all of the topics according to the following organization: - first day: cognitive aspects- second day: network aspects- third day: cellular aspects |
 published on September 1, 2009 Henry and Colette will be attending the Japanese Neuroscience Society meeting held from the 16th to the 18th of September in Japan. Colette will be speaking as part of the symposia on understanding the significance of neural progenitor cell-cycle progression in brain development chaired by Yoichi Kosodo (RIKEN). |
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Sleeps Grand Rounds published on August 31, 2009 Sleep Grand Rounds is a monthly research seminar program that has been conducted each academic year since September 1996, incorporating faculty presentations on basic and clinical sleep research. Research scientists from Boston, Providence and Worcester area academic institutions as well as numerous visiting scientists have presented, and typical attendance ranges from 30 to 80 scientists and clinicians. If you would like to participate in Sleep Grand Rounds via videoconferencing, please download the Videoconferencing Application (doc, 41kb). Please send completed forms via email to sleep_medicine@hms.harvrd.edu. Daniel Cohen will be presenting the next video coference on the 14th of September on Sleep loss and Circadian misalignment |
 published on August 31, 2009 Howard Cooper and Claude Gronfier both presented at the conference held in Strasbourg from the 22nd to the 26th of August. Raymond Najjar obtained the prize for best poster. |
 published on August 31, 2009 Guest speaker: Lynne Kiorpes - NY university
Date: 25/09/09 at 11 - Conference room U846
We use a developmental strategy to study the neural mecha-nisms underlying perception. Infants see poorly. Given nor-mal visual experience, vision develops to adult levels over months or years after birth. By comparing behavioral and neural changes during development we seek to identify the mechanisms that limit perceptual performance. In this talk, I will describe behavioral and neurophysiological studies of the development of form and motion perception in macaque monkeys. We have identified immaturities in the early vis-ual pathways – from the LGN through MT – in young animals that reflect some aspects of sensitivity as measured behav-iorally. However, these immaturities are not sufficient to explain the poor visual performance of infants. Therefore, we suggest that there are additional sites downstream in the visual pathways that impose limits on perceptual devel-opment. |
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published on August 31, 2009 Guest speaker: Michael Bader - Max-Delbrück Center, Berlin
Date: 3/09/09 at 11 - Conference room U846
The group headed by Michael Bader at the Max-Delbrück-Center for Molecular Medicine (MDC) in Berlin-Buch is interested in the molecular biology and function of hormone systems involved in cardiovascular regulation, such as angiotensin, kinins, natriuretic peptides, and serotonin. The physiological functions of the genes for components of these systems are analysed by the production and analysis of transgenic and knockout mouse and rat models. Using the genetically modified animals, the pathophysiological role of the hormone systems is analyzed in cardiovascular disease models, such as myocardial infarction, and regenerative processes are assessed. Another focus of the group is the study of preimplantation embryos and the establishment and differentiation of embryonic stem cells from mice and rats with the goal to clarify the developmental role of the hormones and to allow gene-targeting technologies in the rat. |
 published on July 24, 2009 Guest speaker: Karim Benchenane
Date: 21/07/09
Oscillations in neural systems provide a viable and robust mechanism to orchestrate the selection of functionally active pathways within the brain’s parallel and overlapping networks. However, little is known about subsequent modifications in network activity. In the hippocampal-prefrontal pathway this could enable memory storage by facilitating long term changes in synaptic strengths. In rats performing an attentional set shift task on a Y-maze multi-channel recordings showed that hippocampal-prefrontal (Hpc-mPfc) theta (6-10 Hz) coherence is enhanced at the choice point upon rule learning. Increases in coherence are associated with changes in the Hpc theta phase modulation of a subpopulation of mPfc neurons and enhanced interneuron inhibitory efficacy, leading to the formation of mPfc cell assemblies that fire at the Hpc theta cycle trough. Moreover, these new mPfc cell assemblies formed are reactivated during ripples occurring during subsequent slow wave sleep, when Hpc assemblies are also reactivated. Altogether, this suggests a new mechanism high inter-region coherence to facilitate selection of relevant traces to be stored in long term memory. |
 published on June 24, 2009 Guest speaker: Michel Desmurget
Date: 26/06/09
Nos recherches concernent les désordres de haut niveau de l'éxecution et de la représentation du mouvement. Des études comportementales et de neuroimagerie (IRMf, EEG) sont conduites chez des sujets sains et des patients atteints de lésions centrales (cérébrales) et périphériques (amputations, plexus brachial). Le but est détudier la contribution de différentes régions cérébrales au processus de planification du geste. Les régions pariétales et motrices sont plus spécifiquement étudiées. Notre hypothèse actuelle est que les régions pariétales sont impliquées dans les processus prédictifs qui permettent de simuler l'effet de la commande motrice avant sa mise en oeuvre, puis d'intégrer en temps réels les signaux efférents et afférents pour produire une estimation en temps réel de l'état du système moteur (forward model). |
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published on June 16, 2009 Guest Speaker: Frédéric Kaplan
Date: 11/06/09
In his
research, Frederic Kaplan has been exploring technologies permitting to
endow objects with a personal history so that they become different as
we interact with them and to learn from one another, thus creating an
ecosystem in perpetual evolution. With his colleague Pierre-Yves Oudeyer, he developed a new family of theoretical architectures based on the notion of intrinsic motivation systems, that has been used successfully to create curiosity-driven machines.
In parallel with his investigations in artificial intelligence, he
collaborates regularly with developmental psychologists, ethologists,
neuroscientists, designers and architects. His researches have been
published in international scientific journals of these different
fields. He authored two popular science books in French "La naissance d'une langue chez les robots" (the birth of a language among robots) (Hermes, 2001) and "Les machines apprivoisées: comprendre les robots de loisir" (Tamed machines: understanding entertainment robots) (Vuibert, 2005) and co-authored a collection of prospective essays "Futur 2.0" (Fyp 2007). He is also the chief editor of the multidisciplinary journal "Frontiers in Neurorobotics"
publishing leading edge research in the science and technology of
embodied autonomous neural systems. His robots and devices have been
exhibited in several museums including the Centre Pompidou in Paris and the Museum of Modern Art in New York. |
 published on March 26, 2009 Les accidents vasculaires cérébraux (AVC) représentent la troisième cause de mortalité derrière les maladies cardiovasculaires et le cancer et la première cause d’invalidité lourde acquise dans le monde occidental. En France, chaque année 120 à 130 000 personnes est victimes d’un AVC et la moitié en garderont de graves séquelles. A l’origine de cette pathologie, on trouve une perturbation de l’irrigation sanguine du cerveau. A ce jour, le seul traitement de l’ischémie cérébrale liée à la formation d’un caillot sanguin (thrombus), est l’administration d’un agent thrombolytique : l’activateur tissulaire du plasminogène (tPA), dont le but est de favoriser la reperfusion (restauration de l’apport en oxygène et en glucose en rétablissant le flux sanguin) du tissu cérébral. Néanmoins, puisque moins de 10% des patients peuvent bénéficier de ce traitement, les AVC sont toujours considérés comme un problème majeur de santé publique, pour lequel il est impératif de trouver de nouvelles solutions thérapeutiques. Par ailleurs, en dépit du bénéfice global du traitement thrombolytique des AVC, le tPA semble jouer un rôle beaucoup plus complexe au niveau cérébral. En effet, **ces dernières années de nombreux autres rôles du tPA ont été décris pour considérer le tPA comme un acteur majeur de l’homéostasie du système nerveux central en conditions physiologiques et pathologiques. |
 published on March 23, 2009 Guest speaker: Qasim Zaidi
Date: 25/03/09
"In my lab, we aim to discover the neural strategies that enable human observers to accomplish complex perceptual tasks, and to use these strategies towards designing intelligent artificial systems. In one project, we are working towards explaining 3-D shape percepts with a detailed model of neural responses in the cortex, based on the original discovery that 3-D shape percepts from texture cues are automatically linked to patterns of orientation flows in retinal images whereas spatial frequency gradients are used to infer relative depth. Neurons at the first stage of the visual cortex serve to parse the retinal image into orientations and spatial frequencies, so computational, psychophysical and electrophysiological techniques are being used to decipher how these early responses are combined by later neurons to extract the critical orientation flows. These studies have shown how to explain variations in visual percepts by variations within neural populations, and how early processes in the cortex enhance the processing of critical information by later stages, but the really knotty issues have yet to be tackled. Our recent work in color perception has concentrated on neural processes that categorize and identify objects across different illuminations, despite the absence of shape or texture cues. We have shown that color signals from everyday objects change in a collective manner across natural illuminants, and though this would make it easy to discount the illuminant, it is easy to design algorithms that extract the shift and give both relative colors of objects and information about illumination changes. These algorithms were used to design identification experiments on real objects and lights. The results have shown that human observers use heuristic strategies that are simpler than these optimal algorithms but not as accurate, as if they consider the costs of computation in solving complex tasks. These strategies have raised new kinds of questions about the use of color information by observers and the geometry of perceptual color space, which are being pursued by graduate students and post-docs in the lab." |
 published on March 12, 2009 Guest speaker: Laurence T Maloney
Date: 20/03/09
In executing any speeded movement, there is uncertainty about the outcome due to spatial and temporal motor variability; the actual outcome of the planned movement is typically not completely under our control. I will first present a Bayesian decision theoretic (BDT) model of ideal movement planning that takes into account a subject’s own spatial and temporal motor uncertainty and the rewards or penalties associated with different movement outcomes. Then I will briefly describe two experiments designed to test whether subjects take into account their own motor uncertainty in planning movement. In the first experiment, subjects are asked to touch targets within a specified time window (625 – 675 ms). Late or early arrivals result in draconian penalties and we examine how these penalties affect subjects’ planning of movement. In the second of the two experiments the subject must complete the first part of the movement with only partial knowledge of the actual location of the target represented as a Bayesian prior on possible targets. We find that subjects’ performance is typically close to that of a BDT ideal movement planner maximizing expected monetary reward. |
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published on March 12, 2009 Guest speaker: David Thura
Date: 19/03/09 at 4pm
Over the past two decades significant progresses have been made toward understanding the neural basis of primate decision-making. Although this high-order cognitive process can be extremely complex, most of decision-making studies and models have largely focused on perceptual, binary choices. It has been suggested from these studies that simple decisions are made through a process of “bounded integration”, in which neurons integrate sensory evidence until a threshold is reached. Especially, cortical and sub-cortical areas devoted to saccade planning and execution (LIP, FEF, SC) seem to integer the momentary sensory evidence during oculomotor decisions. However, nearly all of the results supporting this theory have been obtained in tasks where sensory evidence was /constant/ during the course of each trial. In such specific situation, behavioral and neural data are also compatible with a model in which there is no integration of sensory evidence, but instead a multiplication of current evidence by a growing “urgency” signal. |
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published on March 5, 2009 Guest speaker: Catherine Tallon-Baudry
Date: 3/03/09
Attention and awareness are tightly linked and it is often held that the content of awareness is determined by the content of the attentional focus. This intuitive view has been recently challenged by a number of behavioral studies. I will present here a series of experimental data that point toward the existence of independent neural mechanisms for attention and awareness in visual areas. In particular, we observed oscillations in the gamma range that predicted awareness, independently from the orienting of spatial attention, using magneto-encephalography, both in normal human subjects and in type-II blindsight patient GY. |
 published on February 3, 2009 Guest speaker: Etienne Koechlin 02/02/09 The prefrontal cortex subserves executive control, i.e. the ability to select and motivate thoughts or actions in relation with internal goals. In the last decade, functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) has provided key new insights about the prefrontal executive function. In this lecture, I will present the fMRI experiments and theory we have developed to understand the organization of executive control in the human prefrontal cortex which combines motivational factors and selection processes in the service of decision-making.
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 published on January 19, 2009 Patricia Gaspar is a neurologist and a research Director at the INSERM. From 2003 to 2006 , she headed a research laboratory at the Salpêtrière Hospital, and since 2007, is co-director of the Institut du Fer à Moulin, a research center devoted to Neuroscience in Paris. After a medical training in Paris , Patricia Gaspar did her PhD on dopamine circuit organisation in the human brain, under the supervision of B Berger (Paris) and a postdoc on the primate motor cortex in the laboratory of Jon Kaas (Nashville US). She began her own laboratory focusing on the role monoamines on sensory map evelopment. Major discoveries of the team have concerned the identification of the role of serotonin on the construction of somatosensory and visual maps. This lead to the identification of transient cellular targets for the effects of serotonin agonists, in particular SSRI antidepressants in the developing brain, whose activation suring critical periods have lasting consequences on brain wiring and behaviour. More recently the team discovered an interesting interaction between neuronal activity and axon guidance mechanisms that could be mediated by calcium sensitive adenylate cyclases, and may explain the modulating role of neural activity on axon remodeling. |
 published on January 6, 2009 European Future Technologies Conference, FET09, is a new European forum dedicated to frontier research in future and emerging information technologies. Leading scientists, policy-makers, industry representatives and science journalists will convene over 3 days to discuss today's frontier science, tomorrow's technologies and the impact of both on tomorrow's society. http://ec.europa.eu/information_society/events/fet/2009/index_en.htm |
 published on December 16, 2008 Guest speaker: C. von der Malsburg
Talk: Dynamics links and the problem of their cortical implementation
C. von der Malsburg is the head of the Computational Vision Lab at the USC in Los Angeles. He will present his new paper: Rapid convergence to feature layer correspondences.
"It is generally assumed that the activity state of our brain is completely described in terms of the activity of neurons. As neurons are to be taken as elementary symbols (the meaning of which can be probed with the electrode and appropriate stimulation), the contents of our mind in a given moment could according to this view be completely specified by a list of active symbols. I will criticize this view as grossly incomplete. The richness and flexibility of the states of our mind can only be conceived of in terms of a combinatorial system, in which more complex symbols are formed by combining simpler symbols in a hierarchical fashion. This construction is made possible by dynamic links, by which neural symbols can be glued together in a structured way. It is to be assumed that dynamic links are realized in the brain by rapidly switching synapses. Functionally useful link structured are formed by network self-organization. I will illustrate dynamic link processes and structures with the example of invariant object recognition in the visual system, and I will discuss possibilities of efficient control of synapses with the help of specialized control units."
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Conference: Neurophysiological studies of working memory in the primate prefrontal and parietal cort published on October 9, 2008 Emmanuel PROCYK, invites you all to attend the following conference at U846: "Neurophysiological studies of working memory in the primate prefrontal and parietal cortex", ,
Christos Constantinidis, Wake Forest Sch Med, Dept Neurobiol & Anat, Winston-Salem NC, USA |
 published on September 3, 2008 10-12 December 2008 in Munich, Germany This international conference will focus on the practice of modern brain banking and molecular research using human brain tissue. More experts and speakers will be selected from submitted abstracts. |
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Conférence: Our experiences in cloning and ES cells, from murine, livestock to primates. published on September 3, 2008 Wednesday September 10th 17h00 by |
 published on September 2, 2008 07-09 October 2008 |