Descrizione del progetto
Svelare i meccanismi di specializzazione del cervello
Regioni distinte del cervello svolgono funzioni specializzate, le cui origini sono tuttavia ancora sfuggenti. Finanziato dal Consiglio europeo della ricerca, il progetto DEEPFUNC si propone di svelare i misteri che si celano dietro la specializzazione funzionale nel cervello umano, in particolare all’interno del percorso visivo. Attraverso l’adozione di un approccio multidisciplinare che coinvolge le reti neurali artificiali, i ricercatori studieranno le caratteristiche che determinano la specializzazione funzionale ed esploreranno l’impatto esercitato dall’esperienza visiva sullo sviluppo. La ricerca svolta nell’ambito di DEEPFUNC mira a fornire nuove conoscenze sull’organizzazione cerebrale in relazione alle complesse richieste di elaborazione dinamiche a cui il cervello viene sottoposto durante le attività e le esperienze quotidiane.
Obiettivo
Over the last few decades, neuroscientists have identified multiple brain regions that perform distinct, often highly specialized functions such as processing faces, understanding language, and even thinking about what other people are thinking. Despite our increased understanding of the computations performed in these regions, the precise causes and origins of functional specialization in the brain are still a mystery and not accessible to direct experimental approaches.
Here, we propose to combine cutting-edge computational modelling, large-scale sampling of naturalistic behaviour and human neuroimaging to overcome these limitations. Focusing on visual perception, we will exploit the latest advances in artificial neural networks to probe three critical aspects of functional specialization in the ventral visual pathway: First, by training networks on natural and artificial visual categories and identifying which features result in functional specialization, we will characterize what it is about a visual category that leads to functional specialization. Second, we will leverage large-scale egocentric datasets of infant and adult visual input to test how visual experience and natural input statistics shape functional specialization during development. Third, we will ask why certain neural features become specialized for high-level visual categories in the human visual cortex in the first place. Critically, for each of these aspects, we will close the loop and directly test and validate its predictions in the human brain.
Our project will shed light on functional specialization from a new angle – by relating functional specialization to the computational constraints of performing tasks in the real world. Using this novel approach, our project tackles some of the most fundamental questions about the functional organization of the human mind and brain – the what, how and why of functional specialization.
Campo scientifico
Parole chiave
Programma(i)
- HORIZON.1.1 - European Research Council (ERC) Main Programme
Argomento(i)
Meccanismo di finanziamento
HORIZON-ERC - HORIZON ERC GrantsIstituzione ospitante
35390 Giessen
Germania