Description du projet
Surveiller l’activité thalamique pour dévoiler les fonctions cognitives
Des preuves récentes indiquent que le thalamus humain est impliqué dans des fonctions cognitives supérieures, comme la formation de la mémoire et la navigation. Pour dépasser les limites technologiques qui ont empêché jusqu’ici la pleine compréhension du rôle du thalamus, le projet DirectThalamus financé par l’UE propose d’élaborer un modèle oscillatoire du traitement neurologique à l’œuvre dans cette partie du cerveau. Les chercheurs enregistreront et moduleront l’activité thalamique intracrânienne et, parallèlement aux données d’imagerie par résonance magnétique fonctionnelle (IRMf) issues de sujets sains, détermineront les corrélations entre traitement de l’information dans le thalamus et fonction cognitive. Les résultats jetteront les bases de l’avancement de la recherche clinique et fondamentale en neurosciences.
Objectif
The thalamus is the major gateway for sensory input to the brain, and, as such, has long been thought of as a mere sensory relay station. But accumulating evidence suggests that it is crucially involved in higher cognitive functions like memory formation and navigation. However, methodological obstacles still impede full understanding of the specific role of thalamus in human cognition.
The core objective of DirectThalamus is to provide an advanced oscillatory model of subcortical processing as the neuronal basis of core cognitive functions. To this end, the project will address several key questions with the aim to identify and understand neuronal processing in the thalamus involved in human cognition: How does the human thalamus code and communicate information? And how does this contribute to spatial navigation and the formation and consolidation of memories?
Using my unique expertise in innovative methodologies, I will exploit the rare opportunity to record and modulate intracranial electrophysiological activity in the human anterior thalamus. Together with intracranial recordings from the human hippocampus and comparative fMRI data from healthy subjects, these data will be used to test and establish a common coding framework for memory and navigation, highlighting contextual information processing as fundamental thalamic function.
By directly recording and stimulating intracranial thalamic activity, DirectThalamus will provide novel and causal insight into thalamic mechanisms underlying core cognitive functions. The project will thereby push the boundaries of the state of the art in cognitive neuroscience towards a comprehensive understanding of cognition. Expanding the prevalent corticocentric focus on cognition to subcortical contributions will inspire new lines of research in fundamental and clinical neuroscience.
Champ scientifique
Programme(s)
Thème(s)
Régime de financement
ERC-STG - Starting GrantInstitution d’accueil
80539 MUNCHEN
Allemagne