Data-Gouv-ML/pcri-erc-participations-et-projets-laureats huggingface dataset:
Projet ERC : SweetVision (Horizon 2020, appel 2019, Consolidator grants)
Domaine scientifique : Life Science
Panel : Neuroscience and Disorders of the Nervous System
Entité participante : University of Edinburgh — Pays : Royaume-Uni — Rôle : PI
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 1874780.0 €

Our ability to learn relies on the potential of neuronal circuits to change through experience. The overall theme of this project is to understand how sensory cortical circuits are modified by experience and learning. Recent results have shown that learning the association of a visual stimulus with a reward modifies neuronal responses in primary visual cortex (V1). However, the cellular mechanisms underlying these experience-dependent changes remain largely unknown. Computational and experimental studies suggest that feedback pathways are crucial for adapting sensory processing by task demands, together with local interneurons that gate feedback through dendritic inhibition. I will test the hypothesis that feedback projections from higher level areas selectively enhance task-relevant information in V1 and that this process depends on dorsomedial striatal (DMS) output. Toward this aim, I am using chronic two-photon calcium imaging to monitor the activity of neuronal sub-populations in mouse V1, before, during and after two types of visual experience: a passive exposure to a visual stimulus and a rewarded visually-guided task. Published and preliminary results indicate that the representation of task-relevant features is enhanced and stabilised in V1 during learning while responses to non-relevant stimuli are suppressed. This project is organized around 3 aims: 1. To characterize top-down inputs to V1 neurons during passive and rewarded visual experience. 2. To characterize local circuits and single-neuron computation of task-relevant features within V1 3. To characterize the output of V1 neurons to higher cortical areas and DMS, during goal-directed learning. The expected results will show how behavioural training changes the neocortex to improve the encoding of behaviourally relevant visual objects. This project will uncover the circuits that are changed by and in turn dynamically gate relevant sensory information when an animal is learning a goal-directed task.

Mots-clés : visual cortex,calcium imaging,two photon imaging,awake behaving mice,virtual reality,reward,dendrites,inhibitory neurons,dorsomedial striatum,intersectional neuronal labeling,multimode fibre based imaging,endoscope
Projet ERC : ContentMAP (Horizon 2020, appel 2018, Starting grants)
Domaine scientifique : Social Sciences and Humanities
Panel : The Human Mind and Its Complexity
Entité participante : University of Coimbra — Pays : Portugal — Rôle : PI
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 1816004.0 €

Our ability to recognize an object amongst many others is one of the most important features of the human mind. However, object recognition requires tremendous computational effort, as we need to solve a complex and recursive environment with ease and proficiency. This challenging feat is dependent on the implementation of an effective organization of knowledge in the brain. In ContentMAP I will put forth a novel understanding of how object knowledge is organized in the brain, by proposing that this knowledge is topographically laid out in the cortical surface according to object-related dimensions that code for different types of representational content – I will call this contentotopic mapping. To study this fine-grain topography, I will use a combination of fMRI, behavioral, and neuromodulation approaches. I will first obtain patterns of neural and cognitive similarity between objects, and from these extract object-related dimensions using a dimensionality reduction technique. I will then parametrically manipulate these dimensions with an innovative use of a visual field mapping technique, and test how functional selectivity changes across the cortical surface according to an object’s score on a target dimension. Moreover, I will test the tuning function of these contentotopic maps. Finally, to mirror the complexity of implementing a high-dimensional manifold onto a 2D cortical sheet, I will aggregate the topographies for the different dimensions into a composite map, and develop an encoding model to predict neural signatures for each object. To sum up, ContentMAP will have a dramatic impact in the cognitive sciences by describing how the stuff of concepts is represented in the brain, and providing a complete description of how fine-grain representations and functional selectivity within high-level complex processes are topographically implemented.

Mots-clés : object recognition,fine grain representation,topography,representational similarity analysis,multidimensional scaling,population receptive field estimation,self organizing algorithms
Projet ERC : MultiSense (Horizon 2020, appel 2016, Starting grants)
Domaine scientifique : Life Science
Panel : Neuroscience and Disorders of the Nervous System
Entité participante : Sorbonne Université — Pays : France — Rôle : PI
Acronyme de l'entité : Sorbonne U
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 1371250.0 €

Our brain needs to constantly fuse sensory information detected by our multiple senses in order to produce a seamless coherent representation of the world. Rather than being the exception, this binding process is ubiquitous to sensory-motor integration and is implicated in most cognitive functions. Its impairment is a cause of various pathologies, such as schizophrenia or autism. Multisensory processing operates on all brain levels from primary cortices over subcortical structures up to higher associative centers, while the smallest operational units are single multisensory neurons. In an interdisciplinary effort, we combine optical developments, genetics and neuro-computation to obtain new insights into the activity of brain-wide neural circuits that process multisensory information. To reduce the complexity, we study the small transparent brain of zebrafish larvae as a model system. We focus on gaze stabilization as an inherently multisensory model task that is conserved among all vertebrates. This reflex uses both vestibular and visual information to drive eye movements in order to compensate for self-motion and maintain clear vision. We will build a novel experimental platform in which a restrained larva will be submitted to vestibular and visual stimuli, as a pilot in a flight simulator. We will optically record the activity of all 100,000 neurons of the animal brain as it performs multisensory integration tasks. To extract basic principles of how behavior is coded in multisensory neuronal circuits we will interpret the brain-wide activity and the observed behavior with methods from statistical physics. No other system can today provide a similar brain-scale, yet cell-resolved view on the neuronal network dynamics subserving such a complex integration process. Thus, our data will constitute an invaluable arena to test circuit-based models for sensory-motor integration, decision-making and multisensory-motor learning.

Mots-clés : multisensory integration,functional whole brain imaging,calcium imaging,motor learning,bayesian inference,zebrafish,neuronal network modeling,sensory motor integration,optogenetics
Projet ERC : Sugar-Enable (Horizon 2020, appel 2018, Starting grants)
Domaine scientifique : Life Science
Panel : Immunity, Infection and Immunotherapy
Entité participante : Utrecht University — Pays : Pays-Bas — Rôle : PI
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 1441681.0 €

Our current assays to determine the receptor specificity and vaccine efficiency of influenza A virus fail as they do not represent receptors available in the human upper respiratory tract. The lack of these receptors in our laboratory hosts to create vaccines significantly dampen yields, the resulting mismatched vaccines do not afford proper protection and further drive antigenic drift. The objective of this proposal is to elucidate the functional receptor of human influenza A viruses. By using antigenically drifted viruses, we expect to understand how glycan specificity changes due to immune pressure but it will also lead to the identification of a glycan that is utilized by all human IAV viruses. With this knowledge, better surveillance techniques, culture models and structure-based inhibitors can be developed. Using a novel and sophisticated cell-engineering tool, based on lipidated sugars, we will show functional glycan receptor usage. In addition, I will create cell lines in which human influenza A vaccine viruses grow to high titers without adaptation, thus providing superior protection. To achieve this goal, I propose to enzymatically synthesize complex glycans (AIM 1), including sialic acid modifications that are found on the respiratory tract epithelial cells of humans and other IAV hosts. Several enzymatic methods and glycan array tools are in place, and thus the chance of success is high. I already set-up preliminary methods for the use of lipidated N-glycan structures and extensive knowledge on SEEL is present in the department (AIM 2). For creating super vaccine producing cell lines I will use genetic approaches that previously have shown to be successful (AIM3). The systems dealing with sugars enabling function, either for infection or vaccine research, I term sugar-enable, will provide new endeavors to create glycan-analog inhibitors and will bring us steps closer to better vaccines.

Mots-clés : sialic acid,influenza,n glycan,hemagglutinin,receptor specificity
Projet ERC : EPOQUE (Horizon 2020, appel 2018, Starting grants)
Domaine scientifique : Physical Sciences and Engineering
Panel : Computer science and informatics
Entité participante : Radboud University Nijmegen — Pays : Pays-Bas — Rôle : PI
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 1500000.0 €

Our digital society critically relies on protection of data and communication against espionage and cyber crime. Underlying all protection mechanisms is cryptography, which we are using daily to protect, for example, internet communication or e-banking. This protection is threatened by the dawn of universal quantum computers, which will break large parts of the cryptography in use today. Transitioning current cryptographic algorithms to crypto that resist attacks by large quantum computers, so called "post-quantum cryptography", is possibly the largest challenge applied cryptography is facing since becoming a domain of public research in the second half of the last century. Large standardization bodies, most prominently ETSI and NIST, have started efforts to evaluate concrete proposals of post-quantum crypto for standardization and deployment. NIST's effort follows in the tradition of successful public "crypto competitions" with strong involvement by the academic cryptographic community. It is expected to run through the next 5 years. This project will tackle the engineering challenges of post-quantum cryptography following two main research directions. The first direction investigates implementation characteristics of submissions to NIST for standardization. These include speed on various platforms, code size, and RAM usage. Furthermore we will study so-called side-channel attacks and propose suitable countermeasures. Side-channel attacks use information such as timing or power consumption of cryptographic devices to obtain secret information. The second direction is about protocol integration. We will examine how different real-world cryptographic protocols can accommodate the drastically different performance characteristics of post-quantum cryptography, explore what algorithms suit best the requirements of common usage scenarios of these protocols, and investigate if changes to the high-level protocol layer are advisable to improve overall system performance.

Mots-clés : post quantum cryptography,internet security,side channel security,cryptographic protocols
Projet ERC : VISUALTRUST (Horizon 2020, appel 2020, Consolidator grants)
Domaine scientifique : Social Sciences and Humanities
Panel : The Social World and Its Diversity
Entité participante : University of Barcelona — Pays : Espagne — Rôle : PI
Acronyme de l'entité : UB
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 1605250.0 €

Our present is immersed in a crisis of trust. This crisis is most evident in the domain of images, which are not perceived as visual evidence anymore. Faketuality, post-truth and misinformation are concepts used to refer to the alleged loss of objective patterns for assessing the truthfulness, accountability and reliability of the information we receive about the world. However, trust is not a matter of all or nothing: it is a contextual relationship, an issue of “ordinary ethics” whose study requires empirical data. Indeed, we must recognise that, despite living in times of (visual) uncertainty, we all still trust some images as mediums for knowing and communicating. But on what basis? VISUAL TRUST is a multi-disciplinary, comparative and innovative project aimed at developing a general theory of (mis)trust in images in the contemporary world. This project will develop an experimental investigation, both on-line and off-line, on how visual trust is crafted, conveyed and assessed. It will analyse the relationships established by individuals from different socio-cultural milieu with: (1) “social images” (documentary and photojournalism; websites of “real” and “fake” news); (2) “religious images” (Hinduism; Afro-American religions); (3) “scientific images” (outer space; inner human body). The project will focus on (a) image-making laboratories, (b) contexts of image circulation and reception and (c) patterns of iconic verification (the models employed to assess the reliability of images). Fieldwork will be carried out in different contexts (internet, worship centres, museums) in Europe, India and the Caribbean, in the vein of symmetrical anthropology. The research will be based on visual methods of which the PI has extensive experience (photo-elicitation, photography, cinema). This project will also lead to a plurality of outcomes (articles, books, films), thus contributing to current efforts towards a multi-modal and public anthropology.

Mots-clés : visual anthropology,ethnographic fieldwork,image,ordinary ethics,post truth,media and mediation,material religion
Projet ERC : STEP (Horizon 2020, appel 2019, Starting grants)
Domaine scientifique : Physical Sciences and Engineering
Panel : Fundamental constituents of matter
Entité participante : Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz — Pays : Allemagne — Rôle : PI
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 1792151.0 €

Our present understanding of particles and their fundamental interactions leaves us with extremely well tested theories in laboratory experiments, however cosmological observations indicate that our models are incomplete. Dark matter and dark energy are clearly not contained in our theories, and the baryon asymmetry in the universe cannot be reproduced from the Standard Model with its current parameters. Antiprotons offer the unique opportunity to make high-precision measurements at low energies in the antimatter sector and provide important tests of the fundamental interactions to search for a manifestation of new physics complementary to matter-based experiments. Here, I propose to extend the methods in low-energy antiproton precision measurements by developing a transportable antiproton reservoir. Relocating measurements from CERN’s antiproton decelerator into precision laboratories eliminates limitations from magnetic field noise in the antiproton decelerator hall and improves the precision by at least a factor of 30. I will also implement a novel method for ultra-precise cyclotron frequency measurements based on low-energy thermal-state selection for single antiprotons and quantum non-demolition measurements of the cyclotron energy. This leads to measurements at 300-fold reduced temperature compared to the state-of-art methods. Using these two methods, I will improve the most precise test of CPT invariance in the baryon sector by at least a factor of 70 and demonstrate charge-to-mass ratio comparisons with unprecedented precision. I will also set first limits on the interaction of light dark matter and antiprotons by searching for topological defects by simultaneous measurements of the antiproton cyclotron frequency in two separate experiments. The developments provide also methods to test whether the weak equivalence principle holds for charged antimatter by comparing the gravitational redshift of protons and antiprotons at different altitudes.

Mots-clés : antiproton,penning trap,precision measurements,cpt symmetry,fundamental interactions
Projet ERC : SKILLPOV (Horizon 2020, appel 2015, Consolidator grants)
Domaine scientifique : Social Sciences and Humanities
Panel : Individuals, Markets and Organisations
Entité participante : University of London — Pays : Royaume-Uni — Rôle : PI
Acronyme de l'entité : U. London
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 1913934.0 €

Our proposal is motivated by three main problems concerning the relationship between poverty and skill formation. First, recent research suggests that the main reason why schools in poor areas have low quality is because their teachers are ineffective. What is not known is how to identify an effective teacher, and whether we can compensate low quality teaching in early grades with high quality teaching later on. Second, there are strong associations between family socio-economic status and child development. But what is central for policy design, and researchers have not quantified, is the relative importance of different drivers of this relationship over the life of the child: resources, information, technology, or preferences. Third, although many welfare services are available for the poor, we often see low take-up rates, even for programs that can contribute to significant changes in the lives of families and their children. Two of the most cited reasons for low take-up are imperfect information and stigma. For both reasons, we expect take-up decisions to be strongly affected by social interactions. There is already evidence of strong correlations between an individual’s welfare participation, and the participation rate of individuals she is likely to interact with. But we do not know precisely how social influences cascade through one’s social network, and how this depends on whether social effects are mainly on information or stigma. The research described in this proposal addresses these three issues. It answers a more general call for uncoupling the different economic forces driving teacher quality, socio-economic gradients in development, and the effectiveness of poverty alleviation policies (namely the role of social interactions). This can only be done with a combination of better data, with detailed measurements of these forces, and richer models that explicit consider the role of preferences, information, constraints, technology, and social networks.

Mots-clés : human capital,poverty,teacher quality,social interactions,intra household allocation,dynamic complementarity
Projet ERC : CELLPLASTICITY (Horizon 2020, appel 2014, Advanced grants)
Domaine scientifique : Life Science
Panel : Physiology in Health, Disease and Ageing
Entité participante : Spanish National Cancer Research Centre — Pays : Espagne — Rôle : Partner
Acronyme de l'entité : CNIO
Type d'entité : Recherche
Financement ERC de l'entité : 464803.0 €

Our research group has worked over the years at the interface between cancer and ageing, with a strong emphasis on mouse models. More recently, we became interested in cellular reprogramming because we hypothesized that understanding cellular plasticity could yield new insights into cancer and ageing. Indeed, during the previous ERC Advanced Grant, we made relevant contributions to the fields of cellular reprogramming (Nature 2013), cellular senescence (Cell 2013), cancer (Cancer Cell 2012), and ageing (Cell Metabolism 2012). Now, we take advantage of our diverse background and integrate the above processes. Our unifying hypothesis is that cellular plasticity lies at the basis of tissue regeneration (“adaptive cellular plasticity”), as well as at the origin of cancer (“maladaptive gain of cellular plasticity”) and ageing (“maladaptive loss of cellular plasticity”). A key experimental system will be our “reprogrammable mice” (with inducible expression of the four Yamanaka factors), which we regard as a tool to induce cellular plasticity in vivo. The project is divided as follows: Objective #1 – Cellular plasticity and cancer: role of tumour suppressors in in vivo de-differentiation and reprogramming / impact of transient de-differentiation on tumour initiation / lineage tracing of Oct4 to determine whether a transient pluripotent-state occurs during cancer. Objective #2 – Cellular plasticity in tissue regeneration and ageing: impact of transient de-differentiation on tissue regeneration / contribution of the damage-induced microenvironment to tissue regeneration / impact of transient de-differentiation on ageing. Objective #3: New frontiers in cellular plasticity: chemical manipulation of cellular plasticity in vivo / new states of pluripotency / characterization of in vivo induced pluripotency and its unique properties. We anticipate that the completion of this project will yield new fundamental insights into cancer, regeneration and ageing.
Projet ERC : ART (Horizon 2020, appel 2015, Proof of concept grants)
Entité participante : Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam — Pays : Pays-Bas — Rôle : PI
Acronyme de l'entité : VU
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 150000.0 €

Our research team at the Amsterdam Emotion regulation Lab (emotionregulationlab.com) has recently established that avoidance movements can lower anger and aggression among individuals with chronic anger management problems. Building on and extending these findings, we propose to develop, test, and market an interactive application that runs on mobile devices such as smart phones and tablets. This Anger Reduction Tool (ART) will consist of a ‘serious game’ that trains people to make avoidance movements to angry faces. The ART will be commercialized through a freemium model, such that it will be made freely available, while users can purchase additional functionalities using bio- and neuro-feedback modules. The ART will be marketed to mental health professionals with clients who are not willing or able to respond to traditional cognitive interventions, such as high school children or lower-educated violent offenders. By harnessing the possibilities of smart technology, the ART allows people to become co-managers of their (mental) health and well-being.

Mots-clés : anger management,serious games,emental health