Monday’s seminars welcome Philippe ALBOUY, Associate professor - cognitive neuroscience at the psychology department of Laval University, (Canada) 

When: 16th of March 11 am

Where: Salle des Voûtes 

Welcoming coffee 15’ minutes before.

Title: Brain oscillations and cross-frequency coupling as signatures of human working memory functions 

Abstract:

Prior studies using Magnetoencephalography (MEG), Electroencephalography (EEG), and intracranial EEG (Stereo-EEG) have shown that both local brain oscillations and large-scale network connectivity across multiple frequency bands are associated with working memory (WM) functions in humans. However, it has been argued that these oscillatory signatures may be epiphenomenal.  First, I will address this debated by discussing the causal relationship between fronto-parietal theta oscillations and WM performance. I will present our studies combining information-based neuromodulation (frequency-tuned Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation, visual rhythmic stimulation) with MEG/EEG recordings and longitudinal WM training. These approaches allow direct manipulation of task-relevant oscillatory dynamics, providing evidence that optimized non-invasive brain stimulation, targeting specific oscillatory metrics, can enhance brain plasticity and improve behavior. Second, I will turn to the question of how information is represented in working memory. WM functions cannot be explained solely by global increases in oscillatory power; instead, specific and distributed neural signatures should allow categorization of what is being integrated and maintained in memory. I willpresent a series of studies that aimed at identifying such content-specific representations, focusing on our recent work using SEEG during audio-visual associative learning and WM tasks based on learned associations. These studies seek to define large-scale network “fingerprints” underlying the maintenance and reactivation of feature-specific neural information and the contents of working memory.

Bio : Dr. Philippe Albouy is associate professor in cognitive neuroscience at the psychology department of Laval University, regular researcher at CERVO Brain Research Centre and CHU de Québec (Quebec city). He is a regular member of the International Laboratory for Brain, Music and Sound Research (BRAMS), at the Centre for Research in Brain, Language and Music (CRBLM), FRQ-S Junior 2 Scholar and the 2025-2026 Iméra/ILCB chair. He received his PhD in Neuroscience in 2014 from Lyon 1 University (France, with Dr Barbara Tillmann and Dr Anne Caclin) where he used multimodal neuroimaging approaches (MEG, fMRI, EEG, iEEG) to study the brain dynamics related to auditory perception and working memory in humans. He then joined the Montreal Neurological Institute of McGill University, first as a FYSSEN, then as a Banting postdoctoral Fellow in Pr Robert Zatorre’s and Pr Sylvain Baillet’s groups. His work focuses on the identification of the causal links between the dynamics of neural activity and human cognitive functions. In his research he combines multimodal neuroimaging data intra-cranial electrophysiological recordings in drug-resistant focal epilepsy and information-based neuromodulation methods (i.e., online TMS/visual stimulation configured to match specific ongoing spatiotemporal patterns of neural activity) with the aim of causally enhancing cognitive abilities in health and disease.