Project description
Adult brain plasticity through predictive coding
As children, our brains are highly adaptable, rapidly acquiring new skills. However, this ability diminishes with age, particularly in adults, whose brains become resistant to change. Sensory processing, the most challenging area for recovery, is especially impacted. With this in mind, the ERC-funded PredActive project aims to unlock new insights into brain plasticity, using vision as a case study. By leveraging the emerging theory of predictive coding, PredActive explores how the brain updates predictions and adapts to sensory input. Through innovative experiments, including virtual reality and advanced neuroimaging, the project aims to understand and manipulate plasticity to potentially rehabilitate adult brain functions, offering new hope for brain recovery in adulthood.
Objective
The ease with which children acquire new skills is progressively lost with age. Several mechanisms make the adult brain resistant to change, especially for low-level sensory processing, the hardest barrier for strategies aimed at recovering plasticity. PredActive will use vision as a test case to develop a new understanding of plasticity and its limits, through an emerging theory of brain function termed predictive coding. This theory asserts that not all incoming information is encoded directly, but only deviations from a priori predictions are represented. It follows that keeping predictions updated and calibrated to the sensory input is crucial for accurate processing. I propose that calibrating the prediction-verification cycle involves transient plasticity, of the type elicited in adults by interference with sensory input. For example, briefly patching one eye leads to a sustained boost of sensitivity and BOLD responses for that eye. This is usually interpreted as a homeostatic response. But predictive coding suggests another interpretation: when a sensory channel consistently fails to respond as expected, its signals are no longer predictable, and therefore generate large prediction errors that explain the short-term boost. A strong implication is that this form of plasticity should be elicited, even without sensory deprivation, by manipulating sensory predictability. Preliminary studies by the PI suggest that this is the case. PredActive will establish this principle and uncover its neural underpinnings by manipulating different sources of predictions (through advanced psychophysics and virtual reality) and tracing their origin (with ultra-high field fMRI, in adult volunteers and patients). The studies will permit a novel understanding of predictive sensory processing and its calibration. They will cast a new light on the fundamental phenomenon of homeostatic plasticity, and on the possibility of harnessing it for the rehabilitation of adult brain function.
Fields of science (EuroSciVoc)
CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques. See: The European Science Vocabulary.
CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques. See: The European Science Vocabulary.
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Keywords
Project’s keywords as indicated by the project coordinator. Not to be confused with the EuroSciVoc taxonomy (Fields of science)
Project’s keywords as indicated by the project coordinator. Not to be confused with the EuroSciVoc taxonomy (Fields of science)
Programme(s)
Multi-annual funding programmes that define the EU’s priorities for research and innovation.
Multi-annual funding programmes that define the EU’s priorities for research and innovation.
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HORIZON.1.1 - European Research Council (ERC)
MAIN PROGRAMME
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Topic(s)
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Calls for proposals are divided into topics. A topic defines a specific subject or area for which applicants can submit proposals. The description of a topic comprises its specific scope and the expected impact of the funded project.
Funding Scheme
Funding scheme (or “Type of Action”) inside a programme with common features. It specifies: the scope of what is funded; the reimbursement rate; specific evaluation criteria to qualify for funding; and the use of simplified forms of costs like lump sums.
Funding scheme (or “Type of Action”) inside a programme with common features. It specifies: the scope of what is funded; the reimbursement rate; specific evaluation criteria to qualify for funding; and the use of simplified forms of costs like lump sums.
HORIZON-ERC - HORIZON ERC Grants
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Call for proposal
Procedure for inviting applicants to submit project proposals, with the aim of receiving EU funding.
Procedure for inviting applicants to submit project proposals, with the aim of receiving EU funding.
(opens in new window) ERC-2024-COG
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Net EU financial contribution. The sum of money that the participant receives, deducted by the EU contribution to its linked third party. It considers the distribution of the EU financial contribution between direct beneficiaries of the project and other types of participants, like third-party participants.
56126 PISA
Italy
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