Author: adi_uni

An important question is whether the brain treats temporal information differently when producing implicit predictions of time intervals versus when explicitly estimating durations. My recent work suggests that there are qualitative differences between temporal representations for implicit and explicit timing, as behavioral markers diverge within individuals. Nevertheless, the underlying neural dynamics overlap partially. Another line of research I have contributed to is the storage of duration in working memory, where we have recently been able to provide evidence in line with an abstract code for duration in the form of items, akin to working memory for visual or auditory attributes.

In my current research, I aim to elucidate how humans form temporal predictions from the temporal statistics of the sensory environment using Bayesian modeling, and to deepen the study of the interplay between implicit temporal prediction and auditory processing.

In my future work, I propose an integrative neuroimaging approach to provide a comprehensive assessment of the distributed anatomical and precise temporal dynamics of temporal prediction for audition in humans. In summary, my work aims to contribute to a more mechanistic understanding of how the brain encodes and represents temporal intervals in various situations.

In his book How We Learn, Dehaene chronicles his experiments to show how the brain uses reasoning, abstract concepts, and systematic rules to model the world, and how education and neuronal recycling reinvent that process. He details the interplay of nature and nurture in constructing the human brain and offers science-based principles to demonstrate how a child’s cognitive development is transformed through learning.

In his most recent book, Seeing the Mind, Dehaene takes the reader into the visual realm. He pairs one-page essays that narrate how neuroscience has evolved across time with striking images of the brain, such as multicolored branches of cortical neurons and layered brain silhouettes.

Dehaene grew up in Roubaix, France and earned his graduate degree in cognitive neuroscience from l’École des hautes études en sciences sociales in Paris. In 1989, he became a research scientist at France’s National Institute of Health and Medical Research, advancing to director of research in 1997. Today, he holds the inaugural Chair of Experimental Cognitive Psychology at the Collège de France in Paris and is director of NeuroSpin, France’s advanced brain-imaging research center.

Dehaene’s research in neuroscience has involved imaging how cognitive and brain organization differs in adults and children from diverse backgrounds—looking, for example, at the neural activity of blind individuals, mathematicians, adults who never learned to read, or two-month-old infants exposed to spoken sentences. His work illustrates the human brain’s adaptability, as well as its neural pre-programming, present at birth, which is specialized to represent numbers and acquire language. Dehaene has earned many accolades, including the French National Order of Merit, the Chevalier de la Légion d’Honneur, and the Brain Prize. He also has been inducted into numerous international scientific societies, including the National Academy of Sciences and the Royal Society.

Recent recipients of the Lewis Thomas Prize include theoretical physicist Carlo Rovelli, forestry researcher Suzanne Simard, social psychologist Jennifer L. Eberhardt, physician Siddhartha Mukherjee, and astrophysicist Kip Thorne.