Team Leader : Yann Humeau

Yann Humeau is a tenured CNRS Investigator since 2004. After achieving his graduate studies (University of Rennes), he moved to the University of Strasbourg where he received a PhD in Neuroscience in 2002 under the supervision of Bernard Poulain. He then joined the lab of Pr Andreas Luthi (Friedrich Miescher Institute, Basel, Switzerland) as a post-doctoral fellow (2002-2004). In 2004, he joined the CNRS in Strasbourg before joining the newly created IINS institute in 2011 as team leader.

General objective

Synapses are plastic. They change their efficacy depending on various parameters, including the respective activities of pre- and post-synaptic neurons. Numerous in vitro studies explored the plasticity repertoire of numerous synaptic populations in the mouse brain, but rarely according to endogenous inducers. It is no doubt that synaptic plasticity is associated and mediates learning and memory, thus our goal is to identify the neuronal activities that are associated with the learning and execution of cognitive abilities, and to understand how, when and where synaptic plasticity is generated.

We are developing cooperative in vivo and in vitro strategies to study the link between synapse and cognition. These include behavioral tests, in vivo pharmacology and optogenetic, and in vitro electrophysiological recording in various brain regions of identified synaptic populations.

Future main projects will focus on various phases of learning, and will progressively include in vivo electrophysiological recordings in behaving mice.