Mental Health & Neurology
AXA Chairs
France
Unlocking the mystery of how the brain sees : paving the way for visual impairment cures
3D holographic restitution of the brains’s activity with single-neuron resolution.
Working together, they have improved current state-of-the-art microscopy to allow them, not only to trace a single neuron’s activity, but also to manipulate them using optogenetics. « The ability to perturb or manipulate the flow of excitation and inhibition is essential for elucidating causal relationships between neurons, and thus their role in health and disease, says the holder of the Chair. To achieve this, we’ve reflected on how to use sculpted light and optogenetics to turn on and off one or multiple neurons at a time with single cell precision and millisecond temporal precision»
What they have come up with is a holographic microscope, which can send targeted light into a brain slice, or a mouse’s brain. This approach combined with optogenetics enables to precisely control and manipulate the activation of neurons in a brain circuits. « We’re going to use this new technology to investigate the mechanisms regulating connectivity and signal processing across the main visual pathways (retina, lateral geniculate nucleus, primary visual cortex) with unprecedent spatial precision and temporal resolution. ». The long-term prospective is to bring to light the complete designs and global architecture of vision, reaching «full visual circuit reverse engineering», as the project puts it. « The technology that we will demonstrate, says Dr. Valentina Emiliani, will ultimately open up the possibility to “play the brain like a piano”, a dream that will enable scientists to understand how a specific pattern of activity contributes to brain computations, and vision processing ».

Valentina
EMILIANI
Institution
Sorbonne University
Country
France
Nationality
Italian
Related articles
Mental Health & Neurology
Post-Doctoral Fellowship
United Kingdom
A neurocomputational framework for mental health maintenance
Towards More Efficient Mental Health Therapy What do effective mental health treatments actually do? There is a pressing need to... Read more

Camilla
NORD
University of Cambridge
Mental Health & Neurology
Post-Doctoral Fellowship
United Kingdom
Impact on wellbeing of exposure to traumatic material in “back office” police and law enforcement staff
Protecting Justice Professionals from Trauma: Turning Research into Action for Mental Health and Wellbeing Professionals in the field of justice,... Read more

Fazeelat
DURAN
University of Birmingham
Mental Health & Neurology
Post-Doctoral Fellowship
France
Self-beliefs: Mathematical models of self believe and link with mental health
Decoding Confidence: How Our Brains Shape Our Beliefs and Decisions The beliefs we hold about ourselves and our abilities significantly... Read more

Marion
ROUAULT