Who are we?
Current members
Nelson Rebola studied biochemistry at the University of Lisbon before turning to neuroscience. In 2002, he began a PhD at the University of Coimbra in Rodrigo Cunha’s laboratory, studying the function of adenosine receptors in the hippocampus. During this time, he also trained in cellular electrophysiology in Christophe Mulle’s lab, where he later continued as a postdoctoral fellow. He then joined David DiGregorio’s lab at the Institut Pasteur, applying advanced optical methods to study the molecular mechanisms underlying synaptic diversity. Since 2017, he is an independent group at the Paris Brain Institute, combining electrophysiology, imaging, and circuit-level analysis to investigate how cellular mechanisms shape neural circuits and sensory perception.
Yann Zerlaut is a Junior Professor in Computational Neuroscience at Sorbonne Université. He did a PhD in the laboratory of A. Destexhe at CNRS (Gif sur Yvette, France) and postdoctoral trainings in the Neural Coding laboratory at the Italian Institute of Technology (Fellin & Panzeri lab, Genova, Italy), Neuroinformatics group at CNRS (Davison lab, Saclay, France) and at the Paris Brain Institute. His research focuses on the mechanisms and fundamental principles of information processing in neuronal networks in order to characterise their dysregulations in disease.
Dhanasak Dhanasobhon is a Postdoctoral Researcher in the lab with a background in Biomedical Sciences. He completed his PhD in Neuroscience in France, where he studied cholinergic modulation of spinal analgesia. His current work explores how the NMDA receptor co-agonists, D-serine and glycine, regulate cortical neuron activity and sensory processing in the primary visual cortex. He focuses particularly on the atypical GluN1–GluN3A NMDA receptors, using in-vitro slice electrophysiology and in-vivo two-photon calcium imaging.
Anibal Araya is a Postdoctoral Researcher in the lab with a professional degree in Pharmacy. He completed his PhD in Pharmacology at the Universidad de Chile, where he studied the role of inhibitory glycine receptors from the mesolimbic pathway in ethanol consumption in mice. He currently studies the role of atypical GluN1–GluN3A NMDA receptors in regulating the activity of conventional NMDA receptors in the visual cortex as well as in the oxytocinergic pathway, using in vitro slice electrophysiology.
Emmanuelle Berthaux is a PhD student supported by a fellowship from the ED3C Doctoral School (ED 158) at Sorbonne University. She obtained an Engineering Diploma from the Institut Superieur des Biotechnologies (Sup’Biotech), then worked as a research engineer with Alberto Bacci at the Paris Brain Institute before begining her PhD in the lab. Her project aims to understand the mechanisms regulating interneuron synaptic properties and the excitation/inhibition balance, in the visual cortex. To answer this, she combines patch-clamp electrophysiological recordings and fluorescence microscopy to visualize synapse distribution along dendritic trees.
Cibele Martins Pinho is a PhD candidate in the team. She holds a fellowship from the DIM C-Brains PhD program. She received a Bsc degree in Biology and a Msc degree in Neuroscience from the Universidade Federal de Santa Catarina in Brazil. Her research focuses on understanding the functional specialization of inhibitory interneurons during development. She performs two-photon imaging of neuronal activity across different molecularly-defined populations interneurons in the mouse visual cortex during development. She is also interested in analyzing the influence of Autism-related genes in controlling the specificity of interneuronal function.
Laura Gonzalez is a PhD candidate funded by the ED3C fellowship. She earned a bachelor’s degree in life science engineering from Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL) and a master’s in neuroscience from the University of Geneva (UNIGE), Switzerland. Her research focuses on characterizing layer 1 interneurons (L1 IN) activity and their role in neocortical function. Using in vivo two-photon imaging in awake mice during visual stimulation, she examines neuronal activity while disrupting L1 INs through photoinactivation or NMDAR deletion.
Ana Sofia Figueira is a PhD candidate funded by a fellowship from the Fundação para a Ciência e Tecnologia (FCT, Portugal). She obtained her Bachelor’s degree in Biochemistry and a Master’s degree in Cellular and Molecular Biology with a specialization in Neurobiology, both from the University of Coimbra. Her doctoral work is a collaborative project between the Center for Neuroscience of Coimbra and the Paris Brain Institute. Ana Sofia’s research investigates how the purinergic receptor P2Y1R and the CRMP2 protein modulate NMDA and AMPA receptor–mediated synaptic transmission. Using electrophysiological recordings, pharmacological tools, and viral approaches in visual cortex and hippocampal brain slices, she explores how P2Y1R and CRMP2 regulates these mechanisms under physiological and pathological conditions.
Sally Pan Zhang is a first-year PhD student in the lab. She completed an integrated Bachelor’s and Master’s degree in Neuroscience at University College London (UCL), and worked as a research assistant at the Sainsbury Wellcome Centre before joining the lab. Her PhD project is part of the large cross-disciplinary Deep Brain Stimulation (DBS) program at the ICM, where she investigates how motor and behavioural states modulate neural computations in the mouse visual cortex. She uses in-vivo electrophysiological recordings with Neuropixels probes and optogenetic tools to identify the interneuronal circuits underlying the state-dependent computations.
Alumni
- Charlotte Sonnenberg (Intern student from Charite – Universitaetsmedzin Berlin, 2025) : M.Sc student at Charite.
- Nicolas Chenouard (CRCN INSERM, 2022 – 2025) : CRCN INSERM with A. Frick, Neurocentre Magendie.
- Marie Martinez (PhD student, 2021 – 2025) : Chargee de Mission, INSERM.
- Annunziato Morabito (Postdoctoral researcher, 2018 – 2023) : Postdoctoral researcher with P. Kaeser lab, Harvard Medical School.
- Baptiste Lorenzi (Intern student from Paris-Saclay University, 2023) : PhD student with O. Marre, IdV.
- Adrien Barralis (Master student from Sorbonne University, 2022 – 2023) : PhD student with G. Bouvier, Neuro PSI.
- Marcel de Brito Van Velze (PhD student from Sorbonne University and Postdoctoral researcher, 2018 – 2022) : Consultant, Adivo.
- Marianne Lang (Master student from ENS, 2019 – 2020) : Long Research Project, ENS – Lyon.
- Marie Fayolle (Master student from ENS, 2019) : Medical student, ENS.
- Alexia Lantheaume (Master student from Sorbonne University, 2018 – 2019) : PhD student with P. Tovote, University of Wuerzburg.
- Julie Six (Master student from Sup’biotech, 2018 – 2019) : Research engineer with A. Durr / S. Humbert , ICM.
- Romain Sala (Intern student from Sorbonne University, 2018) : PhD student with C. Lena / D. Popa, IBENS.
