The brainers
Romain Ligneul – Neuroscientist researcher
A former student at the École Normale Supérieure, Romain Ligneul is a research fellow at Inserm in Lyon, where he studies the cognitive and neurobiological mechanisms involved in learning, decision-making and motivation. He previously worked in the Netherlands and Portugal, where he trained in computational neuroscience (modeling) and “systems” neuroscience (multi-scale experimentation), following a thesis focusing on cognitive neuroscience with a particular interest in the human brain. His research into our ability to predict and control the environment has led him to question the formalization of the concepts of causality and chance in cognitive science, to defend a more extensive vision of the “intrinsic motivations” that structure and guide our behavior beyond the acquisition of material resources, and to propose new approaches to characterizing and predicting the nature and evolution of certain psychiatric disorders such as depression and anxiety.
This brainer takes part in round-table discussions, offers improvisation sessions and the following solo talks:
Performance beyond appearances: executive control, chance and agentivity in contemporary neuroscience
Executive control is an evolutionary treasure trove enabling human beings to solve novel problems and achieve extreme levels of performance in many fields. However, the complexity and mystery that still surround its neurobiological realization are at the root of many approximations and even confusion when research into this cognitive function comes to society. One of the most common misconceptions is that effective executive control requires “robot-like” behavior, marked by an almost total absence of creativity or unpredictability. However, our ability to produce unpredictable or random behavior is sometimes essential to effectively control the world around us, to learn and to cope with situations that require us to perceive the causal relationships that structure our environment. In this talk, I will show how the concepts of control, randomness and agentivity can be coherently articulated through neuroscience, cognitive psychology, artificial intelligence and information theory.