Laureline Logiaco

Laureline Logiaco is a research scientist at MIT working with Ila Fiete. She studied life sciences, cognitive sciences and computational neuroscience at Ecole Normale Supérieure. She then was a graduate student advised by Angelo Arleo and Wulfram Gerstner, and a postdoctoral researcher with Sean Escola and Larry Abbott at Columbia University. Her research uses a combination of theory, modeling and model-guided data analysis to study the neural network mechanisms supporting the flexible generation of hierarchical behaviors.

Research Plan

“Neural network mechanisms of cognitive motor control”

One of the fundamental functions of the brain is to flexibly plan and control movement at different timescales in order to efficiently shape structured behaviors. This involves dynamic interactions between many different regions of the mammalian brain — processes of such scale and complexity that the principles underlying the flexibility and robustness of biological motor control have largely remained elusive. To overcome these difficulties, we plan to leverage the analysis of recently available multi-region in vivo recordings as well as theoretical and modeling advances that reveal how network structure shapes neural dynamics to support function. We will notably focus on the role of the remarkable modularity of the biological neural networks involved in sensorimotor planning and control, using theory and modeling to identify which architectural features can support neural computation, and testing model predictions in data.

How does distributing neural computations between strongly internally driven motor regions and specifically structured sensory regions support robust sensorimotor control? How can the architecture of premotor and motor circuits support the integration of slower planning signals into the faster sensorimotor dynamics? How can the dynamics along varied frontal and premotor modules efficiently support the hierarchical organization of flexible behaviors? These are the questions at the core of the research we will develop.