Providing tools to fuse structural and functional views in order to infer effective connectivity from non invasive electrophysiological recordings is the central goal of this project.
The brain is a highly structured organ. The cortex can be segregated in several functional areas that communicate through several channels: “horizontal” fibers (cortico-cortical connexions) and short and long range connexions (including thalamo-cortical connexions) that go through the white matter. Understanding and characterizing the brain in function requires the analysis of the “dynamical brain network”, i.e. not only identifiying the functions of the various areas but also understanding how and when these areas are communicating with each other. Providing tools to better understand and evaluate brain connectivity is the central topic of the Brain Connectivities associate team.
Brain connectivity is currently mainly studied through three distinct but complementary lenses:
- Structural view: Anatomical connectivity aims at recovering the “wires” that connect the various brain cortical “units”,
- Functional view: Functional connectivity studies when and how cortical units are processing within a functional network.
- Effective view: Effective connectivity considers the functional influence (causality) between functional units.
Providing tools to fuse structural and functional views in order to infer effective connectivity from non invasive electrophysiological recordings is the central goal of this project.