Je suis directeur de recherche en neurosciences théoriques à l'Institut des Systèmes Intelligents et de Robotique (biographie). Actuellement, j’étudie principalement l’intelligence des protozoaires (unicellulaires), en particulier de la paramécie. Je m’intéresse également à la philosophie des neurosciences, j’ai écrit notamment un livre, The Brain, In Theory, qui critique les concepts fondamentaux des neurosciences (computation, information, codes, etc.). Je travaille également sur la biophysique des potentiels d'action. J'écris occasionnellement sur la politique des sciences (une ou deux tribunes et un article de fond; voir ma présentation Un autre laboratoire est possible).
I am a research director in theoretical neuroscience in the Institute of Intelligent Systems and Robotics (biography). These days, I study mainly the intelligence of protozoa (unicellular protists), specifically Paramecium. I am also interested in philosophy of neuroscience. I also work on the biophysics of action potentials. I wrote a book questioning the fundamental theoretical concepts of neuroscience (computation, information, codes, etc.): The Brain, In Theory.
Please contact me if you are interested in working with me.
Latest paper: Brette R (2026). Predictive coding is not a theory of anticipation.
1) The intelligence of protozoa
According to connectionism, cognition emerges from the interaction of simple stereotypical components (“neurons”). Evolution tells a different story. All the cells in our body (including our neurons) descend from a unicellular protist swimming in the sea, who faced many of the challenges that animals face: searching for food, escaping predators, finding mates, adapting to fluctuating environments. Thus, the roots of cognition are to be found in the single cell. Modern protists still face the same challenges. Among those, Paramecium is a common freshwater ciliate that controls its motility with action potentials. It swims, feeds, avoids, escapes, gathers, adapts, learns, develops. We combine experiments and modeling to understand the physiology of its cognitive abilities, in particular in the context of foraging behavior.
- Brette R (2021). Integrative Neuroscience of Paramecium, a “Swimming Neuron”. An exhaustive review.
- Elices I, Kulkarni A, Escoubet N, Pontani LL, Prevost AM, Brette R (2023). An electrophysiological and kinematic model of Paramecium, the "swimming neuron". Our first integrative model.
2) Epistemology of neuroscience
A striking fact about mainstream theories of the brain is that they take their inspiration mostly from theoretical computer science and engineering theory (“codes”, “computation”, “algorithms”, “information” (in bits), etc.), while being largely ignorant of theoretical biology (e.g. theories of life, organisms and evolution), and even dismissive of biology (just “implementation”). Over the years, I have developed a critical view of these mainstream theories. The key issue is the neglect of the processual nature of biological organisms at all time scales (metabolism, development, evolution). These conceptual flaws are sustained by confusion over polysemic words (state, information, representation, prediction, algorithms, etc.). I recently wrote a book on this subject: The Brain, In Theory.
- Brette R (2026). The brain, in theory.
- Brette R (2019). Is coding a relevant metaphor for the brain? A critique of "neural codes".
- Brette R (2016). Subjective physics. (Now a chapter in Closed Loop Neuroscience, El Hady (ed), Academic Press.) A redefinition of the notion of information for an organism.
- Brette R (2015). Philosophy of the spike: rate-based vs. spike-based theories of the brain. A critique of rate-based theories of the brain, based on their erroneous identification of measurements of events (firing rates) with physical states.
3) Biophysics of actions potentials
Vertebrate neurons interact mainly by stereotypical electrical impulses called action potentials (“spikes”), which are generally triggered in a small but highly organized structure called the axonal initial segment (AIS), next to the cell body. This structure undergoes structural plasticity: it moves, extends or shrinks with activity, development and pathologies. Why, how and to what effect? I have been developing a biophysical theory called resistive coupling theory, which provides a quantitative understanding of the relation between the structure and the electrical function of the AIS.
- Brette R (2013). Sharpness of spike initiation in neurons explained by compartmentalization
. The foundational paper. - Kole MHP and Brette R (2018). The electrical significance of axon location diversity. An accessible review.
- Goethals S, Brette R (2020). Theoretical relation between axon initial segment geometry and excitability. A detailed theoretical study.
- Fekete A, Ankri N, Brette R*, Debanne D* (2020). Neural excitability increases with axonal resistance between soma and axon initial segment. A key experimental test.
- Brette (2024). Theory of axo-axonic inhibition. An application to inhibition on the AIS.
4) Other work
Simulation technology. In 2008, I started the Brian simulator with Dan Goodman (postdoc at the time and now lecturer in Imperial College, UK). It is a popular simulator for spiking neural networks written in Python, now mainly developed and maintained by Marcel Stimberg, in my lab.
Electrophysiology. I invented a digital correction technique for single-electrode intracellular recording (AEC), and then worked on a couple of related techniques. Lately, I have developed some intracellular electrophysiology software in Python and experimental automation.
Sensory systems. I have been working on perception in ecological environments, in particular in the context of spatial hearing and pitch perception. This was (in hindsight) an effort to naturalize the Gibsonian concept of “invariant structure”, according to which the objects of perception are not arbitrary subsets of some vector space but laws followed by the sensory stream (the “subjective physics” of the world). I introduced the concept of the “synchrony receptive field”, as a neurobiological mechanism underlying the pick-up of these laws in some (very) simple contexts.
Motor control. As an effort to get rid of homuncular “decoders”, I got interested in motor control. The most interesting outcome of this investigation is the theoretical work done by my former student C. Le Mouel, showing that the logic of posture is better understood as anticipation than control. This is evident for example in the posture of a runner in starting blocks, but also applies to ordinary standing posture (in passing, a good illustration of the fact that anticipation is not prediction).