Romain Bourboulou, post-doctoral fellow in neuroscience, won the 2020 Bettencourt Young Researchers Prize for his work on the hippocampus and spatial memory.

The hippocampus: circumstantial complement of place?

Animals and humans rely on an internal picture of the world around them, a cognitive map, to flexibly and efficiently make their way around their natural habitat. In the middle of our brain, the hippocampus is essential in drawing up this map because it contains location cells that “turn on” when we are in specific places and “stay off” elsewhere.

In neurodegenerative diseases like Alzheimer's, these mechanisms are among the first to be altered, with disabling effects for patients.

The consolidation of spatial memory

Romain Bourboulou studies another function of the hippocampus: its key role in forming, maintaining and recalling spatial memory. During sleep or periods of inactivity, some hippocampus neurons replay sequences of previously visited places in an accelerated manner. Replay is considered crucial for the conversion of labile memories into more stable and lasting ones: the consolidation of memory.

For his post-doctoral project, Dr. Bourboulou is trying to elucidate the neural mechanisms of short-term memory consolidation in the hippocampus towards long-term memory in the cortex. To do that, he is using an innovative experimental approach combining imaging and electrophysiological recordings of neuronal circuits in vivo. His post-doctoral research will also allow him to learn state-of-the-art analysis and computational modeling methods. His multidisciplinary approach will help him better understand the mechanisms underlying memory formation in the healthy brain and potentially its degradation in certain pathologies such as Alzheimer's disease.

"My goal is to better understand how multiple regions of the brain interact and collaborate to form new memories." Romain Bourboulou

Romain Bourboulou in a few words

Romain Bourboulou is a neuroscientist. His PhD at the Institut de Neurobiologie de la Méditerranée in Marseille was on the resolution of spatial coding in the hippocampus. For his doctoral research on how information from the outside world influences our cognitive map, he used a groundbreaking combination of electrophysiological recordings and a virtual reality behavioral task. He demonstrated for the first time that the mind’s map is dynamic and adapts locally to the availability of sensory information in an environment.

Dr. Bourboulou is also an expert on signal processing, programming and electronic interfaces, which allow him to precisely record an animal’s neuronal activity and behavior.

His multidisciplinary approach combining behaviorism, neural coding, modeling and statistical analysis offers promising new insights into the mechanisms of spatial orientation and memory that are altered in certain pathologies such as Alzheimer's disease, temporal lobe epilepsy and attention disorders.

Young Researchers Bettencourt Prize

Created in 1990, the Young Researchers Bettencourt Prize is one of the first initiatives of the Fondation Bettencourt Schueller. Until 2021, this prize was awarded each year to 14 young doctors of science or doctors of medicine, to enable them to carry out their post-doctoral stay in the best foreign laboratories. 349 young researchers were distinguished. The prize endowment was €25,000.

All the award-winners