From June 23 to 25 2025, Prof David Pascucci (PI of The Sense) and Maëlan Menétrey, both from the Psychophysics and Neural Dynamics lab (UNIL/CHUV/The Sense), in collaboration with Prof. Michael Herzog from EPFL Brain Mind Institute (BMI), brought together specialists from around the world at La Grange (UNIL) for a workshop entitled “Closing the Loop: The role of feedback in neural processing and perception”. This event supported by the Swiss National Science Foundation (SNSF) gathered fifteen internationally renowned speakers from across the cognitive and neuroscientific research domains.
Understanding feedback to better understand the brain
Many textbooks still describe visual perception as a feedforward cascade: information flows from the eyes to early visual areas, and then on to higher-order regions in a sequential, step-by-step way. But this isn’t how perception works in real-world conditions. The human brain contains a vast network of feedback connections: pathways that carry signals backward, from higher to lower levels of processing. The specific functions and dynamics of these feedback signals likely play a central role in cognition and perception, yet they remain only partially understood.
Over the course of three days, workshop participants discussed the role of feedback through presentations covering computational modeling, neuroimaging, electrophysiology and behavioral science. Discussions addressed topics such as the role of recurrent dynamics, the functional role of neural oscillations (particularly in the alpha band) and the use of novel brain imaging and modeling tools to study feedback and neural dynamics in action.
Promoting exchange and collaboration
Beyond the scientific presentations, the workshop fostered important cross-disciplinary dialogue or interaction, that are often difficult to initiate in conventional academic settings. The event bridged perspectives and findings from different domains, opening the door to new collaborations. A poster session, co-organized with the Lemanic Neuroscience Doctoral School (LNDS) and the EPFL PhD Program in Neuroscience (EDNE), also provided young researchers from Swiss labs the opportunity to present their work to international experts and receive feedback in a relaxed and constructive setting.
A dynamic favoring the emergence of new ideas
“I believe events like this are rare and of extraordinary importance for scientific progress. Researchers are often siloed by tasks, deadlines and pressure, which makes it increasingly difficult to find time for meaningful discussion.When we create the right conditions to engage with others, to compare ideas across domains and to reflect collectively on the direction of the field, that’s when the seeds for paradigm shifts are planted” emphasizes Prof. David Pascucci.
Reflecting the workshop’s theme “Closing the Loop,” these days not only deepened understanding of feedback loops in the brain but also strengthened the connections between disciplines, teams and generations of researchers.
