Speakers

Theme1. Timescale: behavioral vs. neural

How to reconcile neuronal timing with slower fonctionnal processes ? 

  Functions such as sensory perception, emotions and motor commands happen within milliseconds or seconds, while slower processes that control learning and memory or mood unfold over hours, days and even more.

In contrast, neurons and brain networks have a much faster overall clock that shrink to submillisecond/milliseconds scale. With the lights of Fanny Cazettes, Sami El-Boustani and Nikolas Karalis, we will explore distinct neuronal mechanisms that orchestrate behaviour over a broad spectrum of temporal timescales.

visit Cazettes lab (INT, FR), 

El-Boustani lab (UNIGE,CH), 

and Karalis lab (ICM, FR)

Theme2 : Natural behavior : eco-etho-logical approaches vs. neural control

How to integrate naturalistic behaviors into mechanistic, neuroscience research ?

In this theme, we propose to explore the emergence of complex, self-initiated behaviors from neural circuit dynamics and their mutual interactions.

Through the research of Richard Hahnloser, Julia Sliwa and Heike Stein proposing neural recordings/manipulations combined with ethological approaches, this session adresses the stakes of the systematic study of neural dynamics in the frame of socially rich and unconstrained behaviors in birds, rodents and primates.

visit Hahnloser lab (INI, CH), 

Sliwa lab (ICM, FR), 

and Stein lab (ISIR, FR)

Theme 3: General Principles of Active Sensing.

How does the brain simultaneously interpret sensory information while actively sampling the environment?

This session addresses the interactions between a subject’s internal state and the incoming information from the outside world.

Focusing on behaviors aiming at probing the environment (e.g. sniffing, whisking, walking), Guy Bouvier, Emmanuelle Courtiol and Mathew Diamond will help us explore how movement and sensorimotor feedback shape perception in real time—for example, how neural circuits differentiate self-generated signals, such as our own bodily movements, from external stimuli.

visit Bouvier lab (Neuropsi,FR), 

Courtiol lab (CRNL, FR), 

and Diamond lab (SISSA, IT)

Theme 4. Systematic approach : modular vs distributed coding.

Does the brain work with functionnaly assigned areas or through distributed processes ?

Through the work of David Dupret, Stephanie Forkel and Mackenzie Mathis, this session will bring together and debate two canonical visions of the way central nervous system processes information : modular and distributed.

Modular implies that neural substrates are assigned to one or more specific functions and then communicate a processed information to other modules ; while in the distributed vision, functions are associated to large scale networks that encompass several areas, each virtually involved in multiple brain function.

visit Dupret lab (Oxford, UK), 

Forkel lab (Radboud, NL), 

and Mathis lab (EPFL, CH)