Laboratoire de Neurosciences intégratives et cliniques de Besançon

The Neuroscience Laboratory of Besançon was formed in 1996 and has since been recognized as a research team, or Équipe d’Accueil (EA 481), by the French Ministry of Higher Education and Research. EA 481 is a multidisciplinary research team in the field of integrative and clinical neuroscience. The team currently consists of about thirty staff including research professors, university-hospital staff (psychiatrists, neurologists etc.), engineers and technicians, and hosts a dozen doctoral students. The Neuroscience Laboratory of Besançon focuses its researches on mood, cognitions, perceptions and emotions regulation/dysregulation, especially on two main lines: decision-making/reward and perception/hedonicity.
Decision-making/reward:
Decision making is the ability to make adapted choices (cognitive strategy) and involves motivation and integration of adapted reinforcements, that is, the reward and disengagement of irrelevant behaviors (impulsiveness). Decision-making and reward behaviors are altered in some psychiatric (mood disorder, eating habits, addiction…) and neurological (neurodegenerative diseases, strokes…) diseases. The aim of this line of research is to investigate physio-pathological mechanisms of decision-making using various tools (psychophysiology, neuroimaging, evaluation of inflammatory mechanisms), as well as mechanisms of action of non-invasive transcranial stimulation methods (rTMS, tDCS). Generally speaking, the goal is to explore abnormalities of cortical and sub-cortical networks (limbic system, prefrontal cortex) to better understand their physiopathology and, therefore, validate the use of these stimulation methods.
Perception/hedonicity:
This line of research focuses on studying emotions in an experimental way. We especially explore some emotional triggers such as olfactory perception. Indeed, olfactory network shares many brain areas with limbic system (centre of emotions). Thus, odors can induce powerful emotions and hedonic salience is the
main aspect of these common cerebral structures. Other sensory modalities are used (together or not with odors) in patients and healthy subjects, according to their pathology and age.