The space of actions - Neural circuits for transforming spatial representations into actions

动作空间 - 将空间表征转化为动作的神经回路

• 批准号: EP/X034666/1
• 负责人: Marco Tripodi
• 金额: $ 218.13万
• 依托单位: MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology
• 依托单位国家: 英国
• 项目类别: Research Grant
• 财政年份: 2023
• 资助国家: 英国
• 起止时间: 2023 至 无数据
• 项目状态: 未结题
• 来源: https://gtr.ukri.org/projects?ref=EP%2FX034666%2F1
• 关键词: space; actions; Neural; circuits; transforming

I hear a familiar voice and I turn towards its source, I see a car approaching and I move away from it, I smell a cup of coffee and I reach for it. All these daily experiences are ultimately linked to our innate sense of space, we know where things around us are and how to interact with them. In other words, we are able to bind multisensory experiences into a coherent percept and allocate it in a meaningful spatial frame so to appropriately direct our actions. But how this multisensory binding occurs, how such a coherent mental spatial frame is constructed and how it is finally implemented to direct actions remain largely unresolved questions.In recent years, we have begun to understand how animals encode spatial information in the form of allocentric maps, in the context of navigation. Similarly, spatially tuned actions such as reaching and orienting may rely on an egocentric map of peripersonal space, whose neural implementation becomes overt in the motor domain with the production of appropriate movement vectors. In comparison with navigational space, the neural basis of the encoding of peripersonal space ("the space within reach") as well as the neural mechanisms for its implementation into actions remain far less characterised. In this proposal I will assess the overarching hypothesis that this representation is routed in the motor domain and depends on motor execution. I hypothesise that brains construct cognitive and perceptual spatial representations by relying on the activity of networks involved in the planning and the control of three-dimensional bodily movements. In the words of Henry Poincaré, the French mathematician, "localising an object means representing to ourselves the movements that must take place to reach that object". Thus, in line with recent efforts to study perceptual and cognitive abilities as enactive processes (i.e. processes whose primary goal is to guide action), I propose and aim to test a kinetic, motor-routed theory of spatial cognition. I will argue that the most fruitful path to this goal is to start from the motor end of the problem, i.e. from the neuronal populations responsible for the generation of spatially tuned movements, and progressively move upstream to unravel circuits and computations responsible for their planning, selection and control.

我听到一个熟悉的声音，我转向它的来源，我看到一辆车靠近，我离开它，我闻到一杯咖啡，我伸手去拿。所有这些日常经历最终都与我们与生俱来的空间感有关，我们知道周围的事物在哪里，以及如何与它们互动。换句话说，我们能够将多感官体验结合成一个连贯的感知，并将其分配到一个有意义的空间框架中，从而适当地指导我们的行动。但是，这种多感官结合是如何发生的，这种连贯的心理空间框架是如何构建的，以及它最终是如何实现直接行动的，在很大程度上仍然是未解决的问题。近年来，我们已经开始了解动物如何在导航的背景下以异心地图的形式编码空间信息。同样，空间调节的动作，如伸手和定向，可能依赖于以自我为中心的周围空间地图，其神经实现在运动领域随着适当运动向量的产生而变得明显。与导航空间相比，周围个人空间（“触手可及的空间”）编码的神经基础以及将其实现为行动的神经机制的特征仍然远远不够。在这个提议中，我将评估总体假设，即这种表现是在运动领域路由，并取决于运动执行。我假设，大脑通过参与规划和控制三维身体运动的网络活动来构建认知和感知空间表征。用法国数学家亨利•庞加莱（Henry poincarcarr）的话来说，“定位一个物体意味着向我们自己呈现为到达该物体所必须发生的运动”。因此，根据最近将感知和认知能力作为活动过程（即主要目标是指导行动的过程）进行研究的努力，我提出并旨在测试一种动态的、运动路径的空间认知理论。我认为，实现这一目标最有效的途径是从问题的运动端开始，即从负责产生空间调谐运动的神经元群开始，逐步向上游移动，以解开负责它们的规划、选择和控制的电路和计算。

项目成果

Genomic stability of self-inactivating rabies.

• DOI: 10.7554/elife.83459
• 发表时间: 2023-11-03
• 期刊: eLife
• 影响因子: 7.7
• 作者: Ciabatti E;González-Rueda A;de Malmazet D;Lee H;Morgese F;Tripodi M
• 通讯作者: Tripodi M

Collicular circuits supporting the perceptual, motor and cognitive demands of ethological environments.

• DOI: 10.1016/j.conb.2023.102773
• 发表时间: 2023-10
• 期刊: Current opinion in neurobiology
• 影响因子: 5.7