Simons Foundation Launches Collaboration on Ecological Neuroscience

Summary

We are constantly perceiving the world around us. As we do, we make decisions on how to move our bodies. The brain’s ability to process all the required sensory and motor information for this is no small feat. And one of neuroscience’s most significant questions is how exactly our brains integrate these two information sources as efficiently as they do. The newly launched Simons Collaboration on Ecological Neuroscience (SCENE) will unite leading scientists across neuroscience and machine learning to discover how the brain represents ‘sensorimotor’ (that is, sensory and motor) interactions. “We are excited to enable a collaborative research program that uses the framework of ecological neuroscience to understand brain function,” says Kelsey Martin, executive vice president of autism and neuroscience at the Simons Foundation. “With an interdisciplinary approach, we hope to discover fundamental principles of cognition applicable across species.” SCENE builds on principles from ecological psychology, which posit that one of the brain’s core functions is to encode affordances. An affordance is an opportunity for action available in an environment — for example, a chair affords the opportunity to sit. By encoding affordances, the brain closely links perception with action. Identifying how the brain encodes and uses this information will bridge gaps in our understanding of cognition. The collaboration, which will officially begin July 1, will provide over $8M per year across six teams of researchers. These teams will include scientists dedicated to theory and data science as well as brain modeling in species ranging from rodents and bats to humans. Simons Neuroscience Collaborations are designed to span 10 years, enabling scientists to conduct large-scale longitudinal studies that typically aren’t feasible under conventional grants. These collaborations bring together groups of outstanding scientists to address fundamental questions about brain function, focusing on fields...