RESEARCH

The lab is interested in the neural and network bases of attention, multisensory processing and space respresentation. It is also interested in changes in brain structure and function through development and evolution. Our long term goal is to increase our collective fundamental understanding of these core cognitive functions and to thereby contribute to the rehabilitation of cognitive spatial deficits following acute brain damage as well as following neurodegenerative or neurodevelopmental spatial cognition deficits. 

Methods. Human and non-human primate structural and functional neuroimaging (fMRI); behavior; intracortical neuronal recordings; fast ultra-sound imaging (fUS); pharmacology; Artificial intelligence applied to neuronal data; Neurofeedback and cognitive brain machine interfaces.

Visual attention and perception. We are interested in understanding how individual neurons (microscale), local neuronal networks (mesoscale) and distributed cortical networks (mesoscale) implement these two fundamental cognitive functions. We are interested in how brain rhythms impact attention and perception. We are also interested in how these cognitive processes dynamically adjust to ongoing changes in the environment and in our behavior, how they plastically change through learning. We are interested in tracking these functions in real-time. Last we are interested in enhancing and repairing these functions, exploring both the role of pharmacological neuromodulation, and closed-loop neurofeedback. 

Multisensory & social spaces. We are interested in understanding how neurons and cortical networks combine sensory information from multiple sensory organs in order to construct our internal representations of space, of self and of others. We are also interested in understanding how these internal representations dynamically change as a function of changes in our surrounding environment or as a function of the actions we plan around us. 

Brain networks through development and evolution. We are interested in understanding how the structure of brain networks changes during normal and abnormal development and account for behavioral inter-individual differences. We are also interested in understanding how brain structure and function has changed under evolutionary pressure.