PEYRACHE | LAB
Our thoughts, sensation, emotions and ability to plan our life emerge from the collective activity of billions of neurons in the brain. This activity must be precisely organized to make it possible.
At the lab, our favorite system is the brain's GPS, that is the network of neurons that allows us to navigate our environments. We study it in rodents as these animals are truly amazing at exploring large environments. Anyone who has observed rats in the subway of Paris or New York knows what we are talking about. During sleep, the activity observed during exploration is "replayed", and this is believed to help new memories to form.
In disease, the organization of neuronal activity is altered. For example, epileptic patients show highly synchronous activity in the brain areas generating seizures. This has dramatic consequences for the entire brain. We therefore leverage all our recording and analytical tools to further our understanding of neurological disorders.
Latest from the lab
Using multichannel recordings in epileptic subjects, Jonathan shows that in the epileptogenic zone, neurons show bouts ho strong synchronization followed by global silence, even in healthy tissue.
In this paper, Kadjita shows that blind animals learn to use olfaction to orient themselves.