Fight, flee, or freeze; when faced with a threat, everyone, from mice to humans, are certain to choose one of these three strategies. Though critical for survival, we are still at a loss as to how the brain chooses which strategy to apply in any given instance. In this new study, a team of scientists at CR not only identified variables that lead the brain to apply a specific strategy, but also uncovered a particular pair of neurons crucial for this process.

A team at the Champalimaud Centre for the Unknown has been awarded a Proof of Concept grant of 149.820 euros by the European Research Council (ERC) to develop a prototype for a new system of behaviour analysis, based on sensors similar to those used in cell phones to detect movement, that will make it possible to accurately and automatically measure human behavior related to nervous system disorders.

How can our brain discriminate and identify a particular face among a virtually infinite number of extremely similar faces? Doris Tsao discovered how neurons in our brain encode faces. With her team, she effectively “cracked the neural code” – the Rosetta Stone, as she calls it – for faces. Recently, she came to the Champalimaud Centre for the Unknown to talk about her work.

We think that, physically, the brain’s mechanism for coding faces is exactly like the RGB code for colors. – Doris Tsao

Who are today’s scientists? Inspired by the project “Humans of New York”, Ar Magazine turns the spotlight on individual humans of science every month.

Name: Raphael Steinfeld
Lab: Circuit Dynamics & Computation
Project: Dynamics of auditory cortex in decision making and task engagement

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Photo credit: Tor Stensola

The brain has a way to keep nervous activity in check as we learn new things and consolidate memories. Otherwise, it would gradually “saturate”, losing its ability to store any information at all. But doesn’t such a need for stability in turn limit our memory and learning powers? A new study now sheds light on this enigma.

The antidepressant effect of repetitive magnetic transcranial stimulation (rTMS) lasts longer when the initial treatment is followed by maintenance sessions, concludes a study led by scientists from the Champalimaud Centre for the Unknown (CCU), and now published in the journal Brain Stimulation.

While trying to figure out how connections between neurons change with experience to give rise to learning, the Neural Circuits and Behaviour Lab accidentally stumbled upon an important finding: the existence of a strong link between walking speed and learning speed in mice.

Henrique Veiga-Fernandes, principal investigator of the Immunophysiology Lab at the Champalimaud Centre for the Unknown (CCU), is the first Portuguese (as well as the first scientist working in Portugal) ever to receive an Allen Distinguished Investigator award, the Paul G. Allen Frontiers Group announced. The Paul G.

Champalimaud Centre for the Unknown is one of the first institutions participating in a new programme of the Gulbenkian Foundation, called “Academias Gulbenkian do Conhecimento”. This programme targets children and young people up to 25 years of age, with the goal of creating novel approaches that will equip the participants to successfully navigate our rapidly changing world. The application to the programme has been a competitive one, with 589 project applications from all across Portugal that resulted in the selection of only 34 projects, reflecting a success rate of about 5%.

How can virtual reality be used to study how the brain works? In this episode of Science Snapshots, Eugenia Chiappe, head of the Sensorimotor Integration lab at the Champalimaud Centre for the Unknown, explains how virtual reality helped her lab discover how the brain integrates visual and motor information in order to navigate the world.