Research interests
I am perplexed by how brains can compute and process data in a way that gives rise to complex behaviour from basic inputs. I would love to understand what are the commonalities between different nervous systems and how they process the sensory information received by them. Both birds and mammals show hallmarks of intelligence yet, why are the structures of their brains so different? Are there common architectures? Do processes such as attention or memory work similarly across animals? I am especially fascinated by sensory biology and would love to understand how creatures make sense of the world around them despite their different umwelten.
Formal Education
2022 – Present: PhD in Neuroscience Bordeaux Neurocampus Graduate Program, France.
I work at the Takahashi lab seeking to understand how attention shapes perception. Perception is an active process and one at the centre of the conscious experience. It is affected by a myriad of factors, a key one being attention. It has been shown that cholinergic modulation plays an important role in orienting attention, as well as affecting perception. Although it was previously thought that cholinergic modulation occurred globally, recent evidence has challenged this. This will help us understand how our brain processes basic sensory information.
2021: Neuroschoool Scholarship Marseille, France
I received the NeuroSchool grant to do a research project in pain biology at the IBDM in the Université AixMarseille. I worked at the Moqrich lab on validating a pain model to study the role of C-LTMRs in pain using molecular techniques.
2019 – 2021: M.Sc. in Neuroscience at the University of Helsinki, Finland
For my MSc thesis, I worked with Simo Vanni studying how information transfer is affected by the physiological characteristics of simulated neurones. Our work suggests that a sparse code can support a predictive coding algorithm if, instead of full reconstruction of the input, the code classifies the input to a factorised set of previously learned internal component models.
2015 – 2019: B.Sc. in Biology at the University of York
2017 – 2018: Erasmus year in Cellular Biology at the Université de Strasbourg, France
Scientific publications
Garnier Artiñano, Tomás, Vafa Andalibi, Iiris Atula, Matteo Maestri, and Simo Vanni. ‘Biophysical Parameters Control Signal Transfer in Spiking Network’. Frontiers in Computational Neuroscience. 17 (25 January 2023): 1011814. doi.org/10.3389/fncom.2023.1011814
Conferences & Workshops
I had the amazing experience of the CAJAL Advanced Neuroscience Training on Computational Neuroscience at the Champalimaud Foundation. It was a very intense three weeks where learned immensely and met some brilliant people. Thank you to everyone involved, from the amazing organisers, TAs, Speakers and of course all of the participants.
I attended the #OpenScience workshop 2023 in Bordeaux. It was incredibly motivating to be surrounded by like-minded people looking to improve science and find ways to make it more transparent and available to everyone.
Garnier Artiñano, T & Takahashi, N (2023). Spatiotemporal organisation of cholinergic input in the somatosensory cortex. Poster presented at: NeuroCompare, Comparative Neuronal Circuits for Adaptive Behavior; 26-28 September, 2023; Bordeaux, France.
Vanni, S. & Garnier Artiñano, T. (2021). Biophysical parameters modulate information transfer in a spiking network model. Poster presented at: Bernstein Computational Neuroscience Conference; 15 September 2021; Online.
Garnier Artiñano, T. & Vanni, S. (2020) Biophysical parameters control information transfer in spiking networks. Poster presented at: Organisation of Computational Neuroscience Conference; 7 July 2021; Online.
Smirnova A, Garnier-Artiñano T, Smirinov A, Entelis N, Tarassov I. Spatial organisation of the mitochondrial Transcriptome in human cells. Poster presented at: RMU-RNA Salon “Genomics approaches in RNA biology”; May 15, 2018; Strasbourg, France.
Garnier-Artiñano T, Darren L. Goffin. Creation of The Proximity Labelling MeCP2-TurboID Vectors. Poster presented at: Young BM Madrid; July 24, 2019; Madrid, Spain.
