Pierre Mégevand

Group name: Human Neuron Lab

Affiliations: Department of Basic Neurosciences

Domains: Language and Communication, Attention and Cognition

Research activities

The Human Neuron Lab is dedicated to understanding how the coordinated activity of neurons in the human brain underlies cognitive functions, and how disorders of neuronal coordination lead to diseases like epilepsy.

Recent progress in neurotechnology has made it possible to record for several days the activity of multiple individual neurons in the brain of awake human patients using microelectrodes that are surgically implanted in the brain. Using this unique viewpoint, we will identify sequences of activation through the neuronal population that are typical of each patient’s epileptic seizures. This will allow us to develop novel, patient-specific biomarkers of seizures that will in turn enable the accurate detection of ongoing seizures, and the prediction of an impending seizure, by automatic algorithms.

In addition, we will design personalized experiments based on each patient’s own implantation site and cognitive abilities, in order to tests how their neurons encode sensory stimuli and behavioural responses, with a particular focus on speech and language. These experiments will allow us to reveal the neuronal underpinnings of normal cognitive functions of the human brain.