Séminaire
DEC/IBENS

Linking biology with cognition in the global brain

Informations pratiques
26 mars 2019
11h
Lieu

ENS, salle Jaurès, 24 rue Lhomond, 75005 Paris

LNC2

I will first discuss a biologically-based model of “cognitive-type” microcircuits, with the prefrontal cortex as an example, that are capable of working memory and decision-making. The model is characterized by slow (NMDA-receptor dependent) recurrent attractor dynamics, and has led to the proposal of a disinhibitory circuit motif implemented by three subtypes of (PV+, CB/SOM+ and CR/VIP+) inhibitory neurons. This line of research also begins to impact on clinical research in Psychiatry. The second part of this talk will be concerned with new work going beyond local circuits towards the development of multi-region large-scale brain systems. Our recent studies ranging from analysis of brain-specific genes to computational modeling have revealed that, in the mammalian cortex, area-to-area heterogeneous variations of synaptic excitation and inhibition display systematic macroscopic gradients along certain preferred axis across the entire cortical mantle, representing a general principle of large-scale brain organization.