Resumen

The complexity of brain functions can only be approached by multidisciplinary and comparative studies. The availability of genetically manipulated mammals (rodents) and of sophisticated electrophysiological techniques, susceptible of being applied in behaving animals during the acquisition of new motor abilities, have largely facilitated this approach. Our group has studied for years the contribution of sensory, motor, premotor, hippocampal, and prefrontal circuits to non-associative, pavlovian, and instrumental learning paradigms. For this, we have recorded activity dependent changes in strength in cortical and subcortical synapses during the respective acquisition process.

Recently we have concentrated our attention to the contribution of prefrontal circuits to the acquisition and storage of instrumental learning tasks, including cooperative learning and decision making in rodents. Our main hypothesis is that learning is the result of the activity of wide cortical and subcortical circuits activating functional properties of involved synaptic nodes. In particular, unitary firing, synaptic and local field potentials recorded in prefrontal sites, are modified during the acquisition of the abovementioned tasks.

In addition, I will present our recent evidences with respect to the use of these functional states for brain-machine interphase in behaving rats and for coordinated cooperation between pairs of rats aimed to achieve simultaneous rewards.

Ponente

Agnès Gruart

• PhD in Psychology, Neuroscience Program of the Universidad Autónoma de Barcelona (1988-1990).
• Postdoctoral stays (among others): University College London (UK), 1992-93; Collège de France, 1995; Universität zu Köln, Germany, 1996-97; National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, Maryland (USA), 1996
• Current position: Full Professor of Physiology. Universidad Pablo de Olavide, Seville, Spain.
• Up to now: A total of 47 Projects received + 16 Contacts with Pharmaceutical Companies.
• Research outputs (until February 25th, 2018)
  • Six-year research periods: 4 (until 31/12/2012).
  • Supervised Doctoral Thesis: 10 (5 with International Special Mention).
  • Total citations: 3071; the most cited article: 279 citations.
  • Total number of publications (Pubmed): 119. h index= 33.
• One of my articles was included in the 10 Breakthroughs of 2006 in the Science Journal.
• Membership of Scientific Associations (ENA, SFN, SENC, IBRO, EBBS, …)
• Member of Spanish and European scientific committees (ANEP, EMRC; …)
• Elected President of the Spanish Society for Neuroscience (2015-2017) and President of the Society (2017-2019).