Data-Gouv-ML/pcri-erc-participations-et-projets-laureats huggingface dataset:
Projet ERC : OxytocINspace (Horizon Europe, appel 2022, Synergy grants)
Entité participante : Université de Haïfa — Pays : Israël — Rôle : Partner
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 640000.0 €

Orienting in space recruits brain mechanisms well conserved across mammalian species. Within the entorhinal-hippocampal network, a core system of spatially-selective cells supports spatial geometry computations. Yet, when navigating familiar surroundings, neural computations of space usually escape our attention. Instead, we parse space into socially meaningful territories. Territorial boundaries are social in nature since they capture the location of utilities available to individuals tied to group hierarchy and affiliation. How does our brain integrate geometry and territory? We propose that this process is regulated by the oxytocin (OT) system, acting on the entorhinal-hippocampal regions. OT, a hypothalamic neuropeptide known for its pro-social effects in mammals, modulates neural activity in the hippocampal formation, but its potential role in territorial representations has not yet been studied. Here, experts in complementary fields – social behaviors, spatial navigation, neurophysiology, anatomy, and cell signaling – will study brain similarities and differences of socio-territorial strategies in five mammalian species: bats, mice, rats, marmosets, and macaques. Our central goal is to investigate how neurons coding for space (e.g. place cells, boundary cells, grid cells) respond to perceived socio-spatial parameters of ownership, utility, and social hierarchies. We expect spatial cells to be sensitive to territorial manipulations (ownership, proximity, intrusion), regulated by OT in a context-dependent manner. OT inhibition may enhance territorial defense when territories are challenged (e.g., conspecific approaches or transgresses borders) and may sharpen territorial boundary representations. Conversely, OT stimulation could blur the boundaries of territorial perception. Our cross-species perspective will be the first to provide information on possible species-specific vs. shared neural mechanisms for territorial maps and OT-induced hippocampal plasticity.

Mots-clés : oxytocin,oxytocin receptors,entorhinal cortex,hippocampus,place cells,territorial behavior,rodents,bats,non human primates,social behavior
Projet ERC : SHAPE (Horizon Europe, appel 2024, Synergy grants)
Entité participante : Université d'East Anglia — Pays : Royaume-Uni — Rôle : Partner
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 639391.0 €

We address a gap in research on the bi-directional effects of language on thought and thought on language, and the developmental pathways that transmit interactions between language and cognition from one generation to the next. The significant empirical advances we propose will result in a unified, cross-disciplinary theory which addresses language diversity through the dynamic interaction of language and cognitive systems across languages and cultures. To this end, we select shape as a core spatial property of entities in the physical world of things which determines bodily action on objects. The abstract properties of shape are codified in multiple ways in the world’s varied languages, including spoken and signed languages – in object and category labels and their organization into classes of categories, spatial prepositions, verbs, and quantifying expressions. Visual shape perception and shape representation in early perceptual and cognitive development are inherently intertwined and interdependent with early language acquisition. Children on atypical developmental trajectories show a cascade of disrupted development in both shape perception and language that can have substantial life-long consequences. Despite this compelling evidence of the pervasiveness of shape, no theoretical account has been offered to explain its nature as a system, neither has this topic been approached integrating evidence and methodologies across disciplines. The main goal of the current endeavor is to provide such an account from the point of view of systems theory and aligning methodologies across vision research, cognitive development, theory of language and language typology and sign language. Our premise is that shape holds a privileged status in human representational systems – in perceiving, using and reasoning about objects and in organizing the structures of the world’s languages and, as such, is key to understanding human intelligence and its developmental trajectories.

Mots-clés : shape perception and representation language development shape bias cross linguistic differences autism developmental language disorder
Projet ERC : SmartX (Horizon Europe, appel 2024, Synergy grants)
Entité participante : Université technique de Munich — Pays : Allemagne — Rôle : CO-PI
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 2532375.0 €

The main objective of this project is to improve the early detection and accuracy of lung disease diagnosis by developing a novel detector concept for dark-field X-ray imaging - a novel method with great potential for the assessment of pathological changes in the alveolar microstructure of the lung as recently discovered in initial patient studies. Our research will focus on chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), the third leading cause of death worldwide, responsible for more than 3.2 million deaths each year. Traditional chest X-rays, while critical for diagnosis, are often inadequate for the early and accurate detection of mild to moderate COPD due to their limited sensitivity. Similarly, computed tomography (CT) scans are limited in detecting early stages of COPD and are associated with much higher radiation doses. This highlights a significant diagnostic need, as current methods, including spirometry and conventional imaging, cannot reliably assess the severity of COPD.  Our goal is to develop a breakthrough detector technology that overcomes the key challenge of darkfield imaging: the need for a 50% absorbing grating. By utilizing the latest advances in nanoscintillation materials and single photon avalanche diode (SPAD) sensor technology, we intend to directly resolve the interference patterns characteristic of darkfield imaging. This new technology not only promises to reduce the radiation dose required by current darkfield techniques by 50%, but also enables integration with single-photon spectral detection.  This initiative is a high-risk, high-reward project with the potential to revolutionize X-ray imaging technology, particularly lung imaging, after more than 125 years of practice. Most notably, it will lay the technological foundation for routine integration into the next generation of medical X-ray and CT imaging technology.

Mots-clés : x ray darkfield imaging,lung diseases,x ray detection technologies,photonics,computed tomography,respiratory diseases,scintillation materials
Projet ERC : EPIC (Horizon Europe, appel 2023, Synergy grants)
Entité participante : Université technique de Munich — Pays : Allemagne — Rôle : PI
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 3150684.0 €

Genomes encode instructions for cells to regulate gene activity in response to their environment. However, and despite its importance for biology, medicine and biotechnology, the underpinning regulatory code remains undeciphered. Gene regulation consists of two major steps. First, genes are transcribed into mRNA. Second, post-transcriptional mechanisms regulate mRNA stability and the rate at which it is translated into proteins. This second step of gene regulation is still poorly understood because relevant parameters such as mRNA half-life, mRNA protein binding and subcellular localization are difficult to assay. The lack of understanding of post-transcriptional regulation implies that we still do not have a complete picture of the regulatory code. In EPIC, we exploit the advantages of the model eukaryote Saccharomyces cerevisiae and other species covering a broad evolutionary range to derive the first comprehensive sequence-based model of eukaryotic gene regulation. EPIC integrates the complementary expertise of 3 teams. It combines innovative high-throughput technologies (Pelechano) to probe post-transcriptional regulation at an unprecedented scale across a broad range of species and conditions with synthetic biology to massively test regulatory sequences (Verstrepen). Deep learning on these data allows us to build predictive models and unravel complex regulatory instructions (Gagneur). Ultimately, EPIC will enable us to decipher the actual language of gene regulation and facilitate (re)writing genomes. EPIC will enable understanding and predicting regulation, and ultimately phenotype, from DNA, closing a major gap in basic biology, while also opening exciting avenues for applications in biotechnology and medicine, from pinpointing disease-causing mutations to rational design of genes, RNAs and cells.

Mots-clés : post transcriptional regulation deep learning rna biology yeast microbiology synthetic biology
Projet ERC : CHRONOLOGY (Horizon Europe, appel 2024, Synergy grants)
Entité participante : Institut Pasteur — Pays : France — Rôle : Partner
Type d'entité : Recherche
Financement ERC de l'entité : 247500.0 €

Experiencing the world and inferring its causal structure rely on the flexible temporal organization of information in the brain, enabling future planning in thoughts and actions. Understanding how the brain maps events in time is essential, yet surprisingly little is known about the neural mechanisms by which the brain represents time and uses it for computations. Based on the observation that complex neural activity accompanies the mental evaluation of time across species, our project aims at testing the hypothesis that the collective dynamics of brain circuits involved in memory generate and organize representation of temporality. To identify the key structures of time representations in the brain, we will record neural activity at different neuroanatomical scales (from neuron to whole-brain) in three species (rodents, non-human primates, and humans) while individuals are behaving in timing tasks of varying cognitive complexity. A geometrical analysis of neural activity will determine the existence of temporal cognitive maps that provide individuals with a mental chronology of experienced events. We will test if the navigation of temporal cognitive maps is involved in tasks where individuals mentally travel in time. Exploiting state-of-the-art artificial intelligence methods to build interpretable recurrent neural network models, we will identify generic processes supporting the emergence of time representations by comparing signatures of theoretical mechanisms with brain activity. Targeted causal manipulation at the single cell resolution will help select precise mechanisms among model-based hypotheses, including the role of local and long-range neuronal connectivity in the establishment of circuit dynamics that develop across time scales. Our synergistic cross-disciplinary team will establish an innovative, biologically-grounded, overarching framework for the representation of time in the brain, its dependence on context, and its relation to memory.

Mots-clés : time perception geometry of neural representations cognitive maps multielectrode recordings all optical electrophysiology acousto optic two photon calcium imaging recurrent neural network models computational neuroscience neural dynamics
Projet ERC : UNIVERSE PLUS (Horizon Europe, appel 2023, Synergy grants)
Entité participante : Université d'Amsterdam — Pays : Pays-Bas — Rôle : PI
Acronyme de l'entité : UvA
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 2500000.0 €

There are strong indications from physics at both infinitesimal and cosmic distances that our current understanding of the laws of nature is only approximate, and must be replaced by deeper principles. The UNIVERSE+ project seeks a new foundation for fundamental physics, ranging from elementary particles to the Big Bang, revealing a hidden world of ideas beyond quantum mechanics and spacetime. Novel geometric objects recently discovered in theoretical physics hint at new mathematical structures. Combinatorics, algebra and geometry have been connected to particle physics and cosmology in an entirely unexpected way. Leveraging these advances, we will launch the field of Positive Geometry, as a new mathematical framework for describing the laws of physics. To this end, we bring together the necessary expertise in particle physics (Arkani-Hamed, Henn), cosmology (Baumann) and mathematics (Sturmfels). This is the first collaboration of its kind, made possible by a recent confluence of critical insights in both mathematics and physics, which are now so closely aligned as to propel us forward on a clear trajectory. Our goals are fiercely ambitious: we aim to create a new mathematical language for describing physical phenomena at all scales, from the interactions of elementary particles to the large-scale structure of the universe.

Mots-clés : scattering amplitudes,primordial cosmology,quantum field theory,feynman integrals,computational algebraic geometry,positive grassmannian
Projet ERC : BLOCKADE (Horizon Europe, appel 2024, Synergy grants)
Entité participante : Université d'Amsterdam — Pays : Pays-Bas — Rôle : PI
Acronyme de l'entité : UvA
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 2314108.0 €

The main aim of BLOCKADE is to investigate how blockades shaped the course, outcome and aftermath of the world wars. In both wars, belligerents sought to blockade their enemies, cutting them off from vital resources such as food, oil, information and capital to hasten their defeat. Existing research is contradictory and fragmentary, leaving us in the dark as to the scope and the effects of blockades, just as the world is confronted with new blockades.  Our hypothesis is that understanding the blockades is critical to the era of the world wars (ca. 1900-1960). The blockades affected societies the world over, testing their resilience and vulnerability. They produced new forms of violence and humanitarian care, prompted innovation and learning, and had integrative and disintegrative effects on wartime societies, alliances and the world order. The project’s ambitious approach transcends the traditional fixation on western Europe and integrates actors long seen as ‘peripheral’. It connects the disparate histories of the First and Second World Wars in a single explanatory frame by uncovering the shared generational experiences and learning processes related to blockades, allowing us to assess their impact on the wars and the peace that followed them. The high gain promised by this project comes with the high risk that we might fail to separate the impact of blockades from other effects of warfare; but it is a risk we believe we can mitigate via innovative methodology and careful source analysis.  BLOCKADE requires input from a range of academic disciplines (economics and economic history, international history, cultural and war studies, statistical and digital analysis and many languages). Only the synergy resulting from combining the four PI and the larger team’s different qualifications and research methodologies will realise the potential for high scientific gains with the necessary complexity and range.

Mots-clés : first world war,second world war,aftermaths of war,globalization,deglobalization,violence,humanitarianism,resilience,international order,innovation
Projet ERC : DarkQuantum (Horizon Europe, appel 2023, Synergy grants)
Entité participante : Université polytechnique de Carthagène — Pays : Espagne — Rôle : Partner
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 475000.0 €

The unresolved nature of the Dark Matter permeating our Universe is one of the most pressing questions of modern science. It is connected to our very understanding of reality at the most fundamental level. The axion DM paradigm has recently emerged as one of the most compelling hypothesis to solve this question: Dark Matter would be composed by very light and very feebly interacting axions. This paradigm is strongly motivated by theory, and predicts a clear signal in terrestrial experiments called axion haloscopes. Pioneering experiments have reached enough sensitivity to test some realistic axion models in limited mass ranges, so far without a positive signal. However, there is still a large viable axion parameter space to be explored. The methods used to date will be inefficient to perform such a challenging task. Here our DarkQuantum consortium proposes a new way of addressing this gap using quantum sensing technologies and hybrid quantum systems. Specifically, we will combine quantum technologies and well established particle physics environments at CERN or DESY devoted to the detection of axions in the galactic halo. Building quantum-enhanced setups in particle physics environments is extremely challenging and needs expertise from very different fields of physics. Our consortium brings together experts from quantum circuits, very-low temperature cryogenics, quantum measurements and particle physics, to build two quantum-enhanced haloscopes with unprecedented sensitivity and mass scanning range. The novel sensing strategies of the DarkQuantum project could lead to the experimental detection of axions for the first time. Such a fundamental discovery in connection with the long-standing DM problem would lead to a breakthrough in Physics

Mots-clés : axions dark matter axion haloscope axion like particle photon counter qubit transmon high temperature superconductor low background techniques underground physics machine learning
Projet ERC : LAST NEANDERTHALS (Horizon Europe, appel 2023, Synergy grants)
Entité participante : Université de Cologne — Pays : Allemagne — Rôle : PI
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 426750.0 €

Our closest relatives, the Neanderthals, abruptly disappeared 40 thousand years ago (ka) after having endured for 350 thousand years in a territory ranging from the Iberian Peninsula to southern Siberia. Decades-long research attempted to address the cultural aspects and the demographic and environmental factors that triggered their demise. Yet, there are no widely accepted scenarios that satisfactorily explain the extinction of the Neanderthal. These shortcomings are in part because the data available originated from a limited number of sites mainly in western and central Europe, which we now know were peripheral to the range of the last Neanderthals. To compellingly reconstruct the chain of events that led to Neanderthal’s extinction, the scientific community needs new extensive archaeological data, possibly from the core regions of the last Neanderthals’ range. Areas of western and central Asia and eastern and southeastern Europe were at the core of this range, served as gateways to marginal areas, and witnessed Neanderthals’ bio-cultural interactions with Sapiens and Denisovans. For the first time, three PIs with vast expertise on Neanderthals’ culture, biology, and paleoenvironments will synergistically attempt to bridge the knowledge gap between the core and the periphery of their range at the time of their decline between 60-40ka. Project LAST NEANDERTHALS will 1) accurately collect, date, integrate, and model new high-resolution cultural, bio-genetic, and environmental data from understudied areas in western and central Asia and eastern and southeastern Europe; 2) provide an unprecedented perspective on the last Neanderthals’ population dynamics; 3) offer a comprehensive and compelling explanation of the mechanisms that led to their extinction by integrating data from their entire range and formulating and testing nuanced hypotheses using new models and simulations; 4) serve as a proxy for the fate shared by all archaic human groups.

Mots-clés : middle paleolithic,early upper paleolithic,homo sapiens,ancient dna,neanderthal,western and central asia,eastern and southeastern europe
Projet ERC : SHAPE (Horizon Europe, appel 2024, Synergy grants)
Entité participante : Université de Cologne — Pays : Allemagne — Rôle : PI
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 1805986.0 €

We address a gap in research on the bi-directional effects of language on thought and thought on language, and the developmental pathways that transmit interactions between language and cognition from one generation to the next. The significant empirical advances we propose will result in a unified, cross-disciplinary theory which addresses language diversity through the dynamic interaction of language and cognitive systems across languages and cultures. To this end, we select shape as a core spatial property of entities in the physical world of things which determines bodily action on objects. The abstract properties of shape are codified in multiple ways in the world’s varied languages, including spoken and signed languages – in object and category labels and their organization into classes of categories, spatial prepositions, verbs, and quantifying expressions. Visual shape perception and shape representation in early perceptual and cognitive development are inherently intertwined and interdependent with early language acquisition. Children on atypical developmental trajectories show a cascade of disrupted development in both shape perception and language that can have substantial life-long consequences. Despite this compelling evidence of the pervasiveness of shape, no theoretical account has been offered to explain its nature as a system, neither has this topic been approached integrating evidence and methodologies across disciplines. The main goal of the current endeavor is to provide such an account from the point of view of systems theory and aligning methodologies across vision research, cognitive development, theory of language and language typology and sign language. Our premise is that shape holds a privileged status in human representational systems – in perceiving, using and reasoning about objects and in organizing the structures of the world’s languages and, as such, is key to understanding human intelligence and its developmental trajectories.

Mots-clés : shape perception and representation language development shape bias cross linguistic differences autism developmental language disorder