June 2nd | 18h | Venue: Champalimaud Foundation
Free admission with advance registration here (registration limited to the first 50).
Questions of the Brain: How are novel actions generated and learned?
Rui Costa uses genetic, electrophysiological, optical, and behavioral approaches to investigate the mechanisms underlying the generation and learning of novel actions.
To study actions is to study the way we do things, which is different than studying how we remember stimuli, or facts and events. Some actions are innate or prewired (such as swallowing or breathing). Others are learned anew throughout life, likely through a process of trial and feedback. We currently focus on understanding the processes mediating the latter.
Our overall goal is to understand how changes in molecular networks in the brain modify neural circuits to allow the generation of novel actions and their shaping by experience. To achieve this, we subdivided our experiments into different subgoals:
- Action generation: focusing on the mechanisms underlying the generation of novel/diverse actions (trial),
- Action shaping and automatization: focusing on understanding the mechanisms underlying changes in how actions are performed, for example, how we improve the accuracy and speed of actions and how we organize actions into precise sequences (through trial and feedback), and
- Action goals: focusing on understanding the mechanisms underlying changes in why actions are performed, for example, how we learn that particular actions lead to particular outcomes (goal of the action) and perform them in an intentional manner, or how we form habits or routines.
For further information, please visit:
http://neuro.fchampalimaud.org/en/research/investigators/research-groups/group/Costa/
http://www.hhmi.org/research/neurobiology-action
About “NOVAs Talks…”
“NOVAs Talks…” is a set of plenary sessions where NOVA PhD students invite experts from a diverse knowledge areas to discuss their ideas.
“NOVAs Talks…” are characterized by:
- An informal conversation with colloquial language targeting a non-specialized audience;
- Embracing all areas of scientific knowledge: Social Sciences, Arts; Humanities; Life Sciences; Engineering; Exact Sciences…
- Inviting PhD students to leave the comfort zone and to discuss scientific and societal challenges from different perspectives
- Organized by and for PhD students but open to all NOVA universe
Organization: NOVA Doctoral School Students Committee