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Spatial Orientation

Previously: sensorimotor adaptation & vestibular pathologies team

Spa­tial Ori­en­ta­tion Team, jan­u­ary 2018

Our team works in the field of mul­ti­sen­so­ry pro­cess­ing and sen­so­ri­mo­tor trans­for­ma­tions under­ly­ing bal­ance and 3D ori­en­ta­tion. We address ques­tions on spa­tial ori­en­ta­tion, a sys­tem-lev­el top­ic, by study­ing its under­ly­ing func­tion­al and struc­tur­al deter­mi­nants in ani­mal mod­els, as well as by ana­lyz­ing human behav­ior on earth and in space. We rely on a wide range of exper­i­men­tal approach­es, using both ani­mal and humans, and we care­ful­ly tie togeth­er these dif­fer­ent lev­els of inves­ti­ga­tion in an over­reach­ing frame­work. This mul­ti-lay­ered approach and com­bi­na­tion of exper­tise ded­i­cat­ed to func­tion­al stud­ies con­sti­tute the team sin­gu­lar­i­ty at both the nation­al and inter­na­tion­al lev­el.
Basic under­stand­ing gained in exper­i­ments per­formed both on ground and in weight­less­ness will be applied to bet­ter diag­nose and treat dis­eases, and con­verse­ly, patho­log­i­cal dys­func­tion may allow new insight into healthy brain func­tion.

Our work is sup­port­ed by the French spa­tial agency (CNES), ANR, CNRS & Uni­ver­sité Paris Descartes.

We wel­come stu­dents or col­lab­o­ra­tors who share our goals and enthu­si­asm for the fol­low­ing themes of research:

Theme 1 : Hap­tic exper­i­ment per­formed in absence of grav­i­ty dur­ing par­a­bol­ic flight.

Research Themes

  1. Mul­ti­sen­so­ry inte­gra­tion, Ori­en­ta­tion and Spa­tial Per­cep­tion
    • Visuo-hap­tic inte­gra­tion and spa­tial per­cep­tion.
    • Visuo-vestibu­lar inter­ac­tions for spa­tial ori­en­ta­tion.
    • Influ­ence of grav­i­ty on mul­ti­sen­so­ry inte­gra­tion: weight­less­ness and hyper­grav­i­ty exper­i­ments.
  2. Cor­ti­cal and sub­cor­ti­cal cir­cuits for spa­tial ori­en­ta­tion

    Theme 2: Dis­sect­ing the func­tion­al con­nec­tiv­i­ty in the head direc­tion sys­tem. A, affer­ent and pro­jec­tion spe­cif­ic label­ing in the pre­subicu­lum. B, patch clamp record­ing, light evoked synap­tic cur­rent (left) and action poten­tials (right). (From LW Huang, M2 the­sis.)

    • Role of inhi­bi­tion in the thal­a­mo-pre­subic­u­lar pro­cess­ing of head direc­tion sig­nals.
    • head direc­tion cir­cuit archi­tec­ture and spe­cif­ic role of neu­ronal sub­pop­u­la­tions.
    • visuo-vestibu­lar and spino-vestibu­lar inter­ac­tions; cir­cuits and pro­cess­ing.
  3. vestibu­lar, ocu­lo­mo­tor & motor patholo­gies
    • Motor con­trol for man­u­al dex­ter­i­ty in humans & ani­mal mod­els
    • Cel­lu­lar deter­mi­nants of vestibu­lar com­pen­sa­tion & motion sick­ness.
    • Mouse mod­el of Myelin-relat­ed deficits & idio­path­ic nys­tag­mus.

Collaborations

  • INRIA Rhônes-Alpes (Greno­ble; France).
  • French and Euro­pean space agen­cies.
  • Tec­na­lia Health Tech­nolo­gies (San Sebas­t­ian; Spain).
  • Bor­deaux Uni­ver­si­ty (France)
  • Uni­ver­si­ty at Buf­fa­lo (Buf­fa­lo; US).

Open for submissions!

Team leaders

Members

Future member (2019)

  • Marc MAIER,

    Former members

    See the list of for­mer mem­bers

    Recent Publications

    2018 :

    2017 :

    2016 :

    2015 :

    2014 :

    2013 :

    2012 :

    2011 :

    Books, chapters and patents



    Keywords :

    • Spa­tial ori­en­ta­tion; Head direc­tion; Micro­grav­i­ty; Gaze and pos­ture sta­bi­liza­tion; Opti­mal con­trol; Func­tion­al con­nec­tiv­i­ty;
    • Mul­ti­sen­so­ry; Visu­al; Vestibu­lar; Pro­pri­o­cep­tion; Behav­iour; Sen­so­ri­mo­tor; Reflex­es
    • Pre­subicu­lum; Post­subicu­lum; Brain­stem; Neu­rons; Interneu­rons; Excitabil­i­ty; Synap­tic; Intrin­sic; Plas­tic­i­ty
    • Vir­tu­al real­i­ty; Elec­tro­phys­i­ol­o­gy; Patch-Clamp; Immuno-his­to­chem­istry; Trac­ing; Neu­ronal mor­phol­o­gy; Mod­eliza­tion

    Cod­ing for Spa­tial Ori­en­ta­tion in Humans and Ani­mals: Behav­ior, Cir­cuits and Neu­rons

    Designed by Vincent Devillard.