Project description
Using VR to understand adult vertebrate behavioural selection
Animals adapt to complex environments, but neuroscience often relies on simple, artificial stimuli and focuses on limited brain regions. This approach restricts our understanding of how different cell types work together to enable adaptive behaviour in natural settings. Supported by the Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions programme, the FISH-VR project will use the transparent micro glassfish Danionella cerebrum (DC) for brain-wide calcium imaging. Tethered adult Danionella will navigate a complex virtual environment under naturalistic closed-loop and partial open-loop conditions. The project aims to identify the cellular and network correlates of motor adaptation in adult vertebrates, enhancing our understanding of behaviour selection and laying the groundwork for future studies on brain circuits involved in experience-dependent and context-dependent behaviours.
Objective
Animals navigate through complex, ever-changing environments, and can adapt to dramatic variations in their sensory inputs, internal states, and the effects of their motor outputs across different contexts. Despite the complexity of the natural environments in which brains evolved, most experiments in neuroscience use simple, artificial stimuli that are designed to evoke specific types of behaviour and neural activity, but are a poor facsimile of reality. Furthermore, most neural recording studies focus on single or few brain regions, and thus ignore the importance of interactions across the brain, especially during complex behaviours. Such hampered experimental approaches have been proven unsuccessful to reveal how diverse cell types across the nervous system interact to produce adaptive behaviour in complex, naturalistic environments. Here, I propose to address these challenges, to contribute to an improved understanding of how the brain works flexibly at large scale, when tackling a sensorimotor task. I will take advantage of the new animal model I established as a PhD student (the small, transparent micro glassfish Danionella cerebrum (DC)), and the techniques I learned and established as a postdoctoral fellow (whole-brain cellular-level calcium imaging, and a virtual reality arena system that allows to reversibly head-tether fish). I propose to conduct brain-wide calcium imaging from tethered adult Danionella as they gauge their behaviour during naturalistic closed-loop and partial open-loop controlled exploration in a complex and immersive virtual environment. My unique expertise will be essential to determine the cellular and network correlates of motor adaptation in an adult vertebrate, to advance our fundamental insight on the neurobiology of behaviour selection, and to establish a research program for exploring brain circuits for experience-dependent behaviours and context-dependent adaptation in the future.
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 biological sciences neurobiology
- natural sciences chemical sciences inorganic chemistry alkaline earth metals
- natural sciences computer and information sciences software software applications virtual reality
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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.1.2 - Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions (MSCA)
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-TMA-MSCA-PF-EF - HORIZON TMA MSCA Postdoctoral Fellowships - European Fellowships
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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) HORIZON-MSCA-2024-PF-01
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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.
75006 PARIS
France
The total costs incurred by this organisation to participate in the project, including direct and indirect costs. This amount is a subset of the overall project budget.