Project description
Decoding the brain’s feedback signals
Perception is not a passive process. It is shaped by both incoming sensory information and signals from higher brain areas that encode context, attention, and expectations. These ‘feedback’ signals influence how we interpret stimuli, yet their precise role and integration within neural circuits remain unclear. Understanding this process is essential, as it underpins even the simplest tasks, from recognising objects to navigating our surroundings. In this context, the ERC-funded FeedbackCircuits project will unravel the mechanisms behind feedback-driven cortical computations. Using experimental data from the mouse visual cortex, it will develop multi-scale models that link cellular activity to circuit function. The findings will provide new insights into how the brain dynamically processes information.
Objective
Our ability to flexibly adapt to changing environments depends on how we perceive, prioritize and act on stimuli. This involves actively integrating our current sensory experiences with our prior knowledge of the world and the surrounding context. Stimulus perception is influenced by contextual top-down signals from areas higher up in the processing hierarchy that carry information about internal state, attention and future actions to early processing stages where they are combined with bottom-up inputs. Commonly referred to as “feedback”, these top-down signals are multi-faceted; they come from diverse brain areas and are integrated at different loci in neural circuits. What type of information they carry and where is still unclear despite their fundamental role in shaping even the most mundane tasks.
FeedbackCircuits will investigate the mechanistic circuit basis of feedback-driven cortical computations, including contextual modulation and the amplification of unexpected stimuli, and will pinpoint the synaptic plasticity mechanisms governing the wiring logic of feedback projections. Constrained by experimental data from the mouse visual cortex, I will build a multi-scale theoretical framework that unifies diverse experimental findings and links cellular to circuit-level processing. Our strategy leverages new datasets that encompass multiple modalities, from neural responses in various brain regions to detailed synaptic-level wiring diagrams. The proposed mechanistic models will enable the exploration of distinct feedback sources and sites of plasticity, and together with the data, define plausible parameter spaces underlying feedback-driven computations. In contrast to other efforts training hard-to-interpret artificial neural networks, our models promise to elucidate the mechanistic underpinnings of circuit structure-function dynamics involving feedback, to distinguish between competing mechanistic hypotheses and make numerous experimental predictions.
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.
- natural sciences computer and information sciences artificial intelligence computational intelligence
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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)
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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
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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
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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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80333 Muenchen
Germany
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