Thesis subject : Neuronal basis of adpaptive behaviours
Thesis supervisor : Eric BURGUIERE
My thesis work aims at understanding how animals adapt to brutal changes in their environment. Three main questions are at stake:
What are the visible behavioural modifications following a brutal change in the environment?
What are the cognitive models that may explain these behavioural observations?
What are the neuronal substrates involved?
Thanks to fully automatized behavioural operant chambers that I have designed, I have been able to implement a new behvioural task with mice and collect thousands of data along weeks of continuous experiments (24/24, 7/7). The use of astute analysis, with and without models, as well as the implementation of pharmacological neuromodulation currently allow me to answer the previous questions.