NEWS (last update: Apr 10, 2020)

April 2021

Implantation planning in progress...

With the free software 3D Slicer, a CT-scan and a MRI scan done at the Cermep, we are now choosing the best location and orientation of the recording chamber so we can simultaneously record in PMd/M1, the putamen, GPe, GPi and VLa.  

March 2021

Happy to find out that my invited commentary on "Précis of Vigor: Neuroeconomics of Movement Control" by Reza Shadmehr and Alaa A. Ahmed, entitled "Neuroscience needs integrated behavior", has been officially accepted for publication in Behavioral and Brain Sciences. Stay tuned for the online version of the article.

March 2021

Upcoming presentations:

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March 26: German Neuroscience Society annual meeting - Live discussion of my presentation on the population dynamics in the cortex and basal ganglia. - Online

April 19: EPS workshop on decision-making in voluntary actions - Neural correlates of decision between actions in a cortico-basal ganglia network. UCL, London - Online

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April 20-22: Clara will present her poster on the effect of action duration and energy on decision-making during the 2021 annual meeting of the Society for Neural Control of Movement. - Online

February 2021

New page on the site !

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Learn more about the equipment we are using in the lab. 

December 2020

Very happy to find out that the team ATIP/Avenir label will be renewed and the research funded for two additional years (until August 2023).

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Thank you to the Inserm and CNRS ATIP/Avenir committee for trusting my program. 

November 2020

Very grateful to Katja Heuer and Roberto Toro for making their beautiful poster free to download in high resolution. Aesthetic and educational decoration. Their paper on the evolution of neocortical folding across 34 primate species can be found here: 10.1016/j.cortex.2019.04.011

November 2020

Very happy to see our latest paper discussed in the sensorimotor control and learning journal club. @Amelie_Reynaud showed how humans can flexibly adjust their decision and movement speed/accuracy trade-off depending on task constraints.

October 2020

New preprint

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How do the cortex and the basal ganglia share labor during decision and action?

With Jean-Francois Cabana, Albert Feghaly and Paul Cisek we analyzed population activity from PMd, M1, dlPFC, GPe and GPi in two monkeys performing a decision task.

We show that decisions about actions involve a unified dynamical attractor system distributed across the cortex and basal ganglia.

July 2020

Congratulations Clara Saleri for being awarded with a doctoral scholarship from the French Ministry of Research ! Very happy to welcome you onboard and I look forward to studying the neural bases of decision-making together !

July 2020

Very happy to see the second paper of the lab accepted in one of my favorite journal, Journal of Neurophysiology ! Congratulations Amelie Reynaud and Clara Saleri on this important step toward a better understanding of the relationship between decision-making and motor control  !

BACKGROUND

My Ph.D. research focused on the FEF, a major component of the cerebral network that is thought to contribute to decision making, as well as to visual and oculomotor processes. We used single-neuron recordings in monkeys to test the hypothesis that FEF neurons integrate signals from the hand to ensure adapted ocular exploration of peripersonal space. 

My post-doctoral position in Paul Cisek’s lab provided me with the opportunity to pursue the exploration of complex integrative functions, i.e. decision making, in brain regions such as PMd, M1 and PFC. We investigated the neural correlates of dynamic decision-making in monkeys trained to perform a reach decision task. We showed that premotor and primary motor cortex activity reflects the competition between potential options and signals the commitment to a choice before movement initiation.  

As a research associate in Paul Cisek's lab at University of Montreal, we explored the behavior and the neural bases of speed-accuracy trade-off adjustments during dynamic decisions and movement execution. We investigate this question under the affordance competition and the urgency-gating frameworks. 

Please check out a more detailed overview of my career and accomplishments

EQUIPMENT

On this page I describe the different pieces of equipment that we are currently using in the lab, for both behavioral and electrophysiological experiments conducted in humans and monkeys

MATERIAL

In this section I share articles that caught my eye and I make some material available, mostly slides from various courses or talks. Feel free to check it out

LINKS - COLLABORATIONS

Please visit these relevant web sites and learn more about my current collaborations