Publications related to Regulation of adenylyl cyclase 5 in striatal neurons confers the ability to detect coincident neuromodulatory signals

White adipose tissue distribution and amount are associated with increased white matter connectivity

Jean-Philippe Thiran, Gabriel Girard, Elda Fischi Gomez, Philipp Johannes Koch, Liana Okudzhava

Obesity represents a significant public health concern and is linked to various comorbidities and cognitive impairments. Previous research indicates that elevated body mass index (BMI) is associated with structural changes in white matter (WM). However, a ...

Wiley2024

Non-invasive stimulation of the human striatum disrupts reinforcement learning of motor skills

Friedhelm Christoph Hummel, Takuya Morishita, Pierre Theopistos Vassiliadis, Elena Beanato, Esra Neufeld, Fabienne Windel, Maximilian Jonas Wessel, Traian Popa, Julie Duqué

Reinforcement feedback can improve motor learning, but the underlying brain mechanisms remain underexplored. In particular, the causal contribution of specific patterns of oscillatory activity within the human striatum is unknown. To address this question, ...

Nature Portfolio2024

A bistable inhibitory optoGPCR for multiplexed optogenetic control of neural circuits

Mauro Pulin

Information is transmitted between brain regions through the release of neurotransmitters from long-range projecting axons. Understanding how the activity of such long-range connections contributes to behavior requires efficient methods for reversibly mani ...

Nature Portfolio2024

Involvement of prelimbic cortex neurons and related circuits in the acquisition of a cooperative learning by pairs of rats

Maria del Carmen Sandi Perez, Elias Georges Gebara, Ana del Rocio Conde Moro

Social behaviors such as cooperation are crucial for mammals. A deeper knowledge of the neuronal mechanisms underlying cooperation can be beneficial for people suffering from pathologies with impaired social behavior. Our aim was to study the brain activit ...

Springer2024

From Sequence to Dynamics to Function: Computational Design of Allostery and Ligand Selectivity in G-Protein Coupled Receptors

Mahdi Hijazi

The phenomenon of allostery, a general property in proteins that has been heralded as "the second secret of life" remains elusive to our understanding and even more challenging to incorporate into protein design. One example of allosteric proteins with gre ...

EPFL2024

Single-cell epigenomic reconstruction of developmental trajectories from pluripotency in human neural organoid systems

Fides Zenk

Cell fate progression of pluripotent progenitors is strictly regulated, resulting in high human cell diversity. Epigenetic modifications also orchestrate cell fate restriction. Unveiling the epigenetic mechanisms underlying human cell diversity has been di ...

Nature Portfolio2024

Subcortical correlates of consciousness with human single neuron recordings

Olaf Blanke, Fosco Bernasconi, Nathan Quentin Faivre, Michael Eric Anthony Pereira

Subcortical brain structures such as the basal ganglia or the thalamus are involved in regulating motor and cognitive behavior. However, their contribution to perceptual consciousness is still unclear, due to the inherent difficulties of recording subcorti ...

2024

Seeking the new, learning from the unexpected: Computational models of surprise and novelty in the brain

Alireza Modirshanechi

Human babies have a natural desire to interact with new toys and objects, through which they learn how the world around them works, e.g., that glass shatters when dropped, but a rubber ball does not. When their predictions are proven incorrect, such as whe ...

EPFL2024

Computational drug development for membrane protein targets

Pierre Vogel, Henning Paul-Julius Stahlberg, Dongchun Ni, Babatunde Edukpe Ekundayo, Shuguang Yuan

The application of computational biology in drug development for membrane protein targets has experienced a boost from recent developments in deep learning-driven structure prediction, increased speed and resolution of structure elucidation, machine learni ...

2024

Neurobiological and metabolic basis of motivation and effort-based decision-making - A human 1H-MRS, fMRI and machine learning study

Arthur Barakat

Motivation is a multifaceted phenomenon that we explore within the framework of decision-making. Through this cognitive process, actions are directed towards specific goals by performing a trade-off between the cost and benefit of an action. The dorsomedia ...

EPFL2024