News - 2020
Oct 25, 2020
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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 applied a dimensionality reduction technique (PCA) on the activity of neurons to extract patterns of response covariation shared by the population and to relate them to task-relevant variables.
We show that decisions about actions involve a unified dynamical attractor system distributed across the cortex and basal ganglia.
Jul 20, 2020
New publication
Please check out the second paper of the lab, published in the Journal of Neurophysiology. The study, led by Dr. Amelie Reynaud, shows an interesting phenomenon: human subjects tend to sacrifice their decisions when the movement they have to produce to report these choices are demanding in terms of accuracy. Data also suggest that there is no one single invigoration signal coordinating decision and action durations, but instead independent, yet interacting, urgency and vigor signals.
Feb 02, 2020
New publication
Please check out the latest paper published in the Journal of Neurophysiology describing an ICMS experiment performed in Montreal with Paul Cisek. We show that stimulation of monkey PMd and, to lesser extend, M1 delays the commitment to an action choice:
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Jan 16, 2020
New publication
The first paper of the lab is out !!! Check it out !
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News - 2019
Oct 30, 2019
Material update
Setup of the monkey lab in progress. Animals' training phase on the task about to start !
Oct 22, 2019
Sep 24, 2019
Material update
The EyeLink 1000 Plus just arrived ! Installation and calibration in progress. The goal is to accurately monitor monkeys' eye position and pupil size during decision making and movement execution.
Sep 04, 2019
Material update
The monkey restraint chair just arrived ! Animals' habituation phase about to start !!!
Aug 15, 2019
Material update
Thank you very much to Dr. Karen Reilly (CRNL-Impact) for letting me her IM and surface EMG recording system (Grass QP511) ! Great tool to accurately measure reaching movement onset and vigor.
Also, by looking at old material in the unit, I came across this beautiful Grass S88 2 channel stimulator!
Apr 28, 2019
Very pleased to contribute to the upcoming workshop on Cognitive Control and Performance Monitoring - In memory of Laurence Questienne
I will be giving a talk entitled:
Neural correlates of action decisions in a cortico-basal ganglia network
June 14, 2019 - 17.50 pm
Oostduinkerke, Belgium
Please check the full program
Apr 05, 2019
Upcoming talk:
Selection and invigoration of behavior: a role for the cortico-basal ganglia network
Friday, April 05, 2019, 12pm
Laboratoire de Neurosciences Cognitives et Computationnelles
Inserm - Ecole Normale Supérieure
29, rue d’Ulm, 75005 Paris
Mar 28-29, 2019
Insightful 2-retreat for the new Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes Inserm researchers in the beautiful domain Les Pensieres, a property belonging to the Merieux family in Veyrier-du-Lac
Jan 22, 2019
I'm hiring ! Please take a look at the official advertisement and feel free to contact me with any questions !
News - 2018
Nov 16, 2018
The setup for the human experiments is ready !
A few software-related issues to fix, the ethical protocol to submit and wait for approval and experiments will begin. Expected date: January 2019
Oct 25, 2018
Lab setup in progress:
The office is almost complete, including brand new desk and computers !
The monkey ephy room is here, only needs some cleaning and then we'll start setting equipment up.
At the same time I'm working on an experimental setup dedicated to human subjects. Objective: cross-species comparison and fine-tuning of task parameters for monkey experiments
September, 2018
Please check out this book chapter in which Paul Cisek and I summarize our recent work on the role of the PMd/M1-BG circuit during decision between actions, propose a way to map neural circuits and decision types and finally speculate on the respective functions of cortex and BG during goal oriented behavior.
https://www.taylorfrancis.com/books/e/9780429885945/chapters/10.4324%2F9780429467875-5
April 6 & 7, 2018
Great speakers and attendees, cool conversations and beautiful weather at the "Probabilities and Optimal Inference to Understand the Brain" workshop in Marseille.
Thanks to the organizers for putting together this great event !