Dynamic Cognition Group

Our research group investigates the cognitive and neural mechanisms of adaptive interaction with dynamic environments. 

Cognitive processing evolves continuously in time as our dynamic world rapidly unfolds, posing a computational challenge for the brain. To cope with this, a key principle is that the brain predicts future states based on past experience and uses these predictions to proactively guide perception and action. Moreover, adaptive interaction is facilitated when predictive processing is temporally informed, allowing cognitive processing to continuously evolve in sync with the surrounding world.

Our research brings together the fields of temporal cognition, learning and prediction, and attention and preparation, with the goal of building a neurocognitive model of dynamic cognition. We are interested in how time is represented, how perception, cognition and action operate within a temporal coordinate system, and how predictive processing incorporates the time domain along with other dimensions. We have special interest in how these functions, and more broadly non-motor cognitive processing, rely on subcortical structures, mainly the cerebellum and basal ganglia, and on their interaction with cortical circuits.

We approach these questions with a multimodal approach, combining psychophysics and behavioral testing, computational modelling, human neurophysiology, and non-invasive brain stimulation. In addition, a central aspect of our work is the application of these methods in various neurological populations, to identify the causal role of affected neural circuits. This is crucial for the study of subcortical structures as they are mostly beyond the reach of current non-invasive brain stimulation methods.