Ignacio Polti
About
I am currently a postdoctoral researcher at the Kavli Institute for Systems Neuroscience, working in the lab of Nobel laureates May-Britt and Edvard Moser.
Research
The brain’s ability to represent magnitudes such as durations is critical for living organisms to successfully interact with the environment. Time can be considered one of the most prominent dimensions that humans use to describe in an abstract way their interactions with the environment.
My research seeks to understand the cognitive and neural mechanisms of time perception using a cross-species approach in humans and rodents, with an emphasis in the role that brain structures such as the hippocampus and the entorhinal cortex play in it.
In humans I study sensorimotor timing, i.e., the act of coordinating the timing of motor actions in response to specific sensory events, such as intercepting/avoiding a moving target (e.g., catching a rugby ball) or producing sequences of timed actions (e.g., playing the piano). Specifically, I research how humans flexibly adapt to the statistical properties of a given context to improve the precision of their timed motor actions.
In rodents I study episodic timing, i.e, the estimation of durations from the memory of past events (e.g., how long ago did you have lunch?). In this domain, I research how the process of event segmentation influences the perception of time.
These topics are studied under the computational framework of predictive processing, using a wide range of neuroimaging methods and carefully designed behavioral tasks.
Education
- PhD in Cognitive Neuroscience | Norwegian University of Science and Technology
- MSc in Cognitive Science | École Normale Supérieure (Paris)
- Psychology degree | Universidad de Buenos Aires
Research
Entorhinal-hippocampal codes for time in rodent brains
Mapping of temporal regularities in sensorimotor cognitive maps
Publications
2023
-
Azizi, Leila;
Polti, Ignacio;
van Wassenhove, Virginie.
(2023)
Spontaneous alpha brain dynamics track the episodic “when”.
Journal of Neuroscience
Academic article
2022
-
Polti, Ignacio;
Nau, Matthias;
Kaplan, Raphael;
van Wassenhove, Virginie;
Doeller, Christian Fritz Andreas.
(2022)
Rapid encoding of task regularities in the human hippocampus guides sensorimotor timing.
eLIFE
Academic article
2020
-
Bellmund, Jacob Lukas Sarid;
Polti, Ignacio;
Doeller, Christian Fritz Andreas.
(2020)
Sequence Memory in the Hippocampal–Entorhinal Region.
Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience
Academic article
2018
-
Polti, Ignacio;
Martin, Benoit;
van Wassenhove, Virginie.
(2018)
The effect of attention and working memory on the estimation of elapsed time.
Scientific Reports
Academic article
Journal publications
-
Azizi, Leila;
Polti, Ignacio;
van Wassenhove, Virginie.
(2023)
Spontaneous alpha brain dynamics track the episodic “when”.
Journal of Neuroscience
Academic article
-
Polti, Ignacio;
Nau, Matthias;
Kaplan, Raphael;
van Wassenhove, Virginie;
Doeller, Christian Fritz Andreas.
(2022)
Rapid encoding of task regularities in the human hippocampus guides sensorimotor timing.
eLIFE
Academic article
-
Bellmund, Jacob Lukas Sarid;
Polti, Ignacio;
Doeller, Christian Fritz Andreas.
(2020)
Sequence Memory in the Hippocampal–Entorhinal Region.
Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience
Academic article
-
Polti, Ignacio;
Martin, Benoit;
van Wassenhove, Virginie.
(2018)
The effect of attention and working memory on the estimation of elapsed time.
Scientific Reports
Academic article
Outreach
#34 The Journal of Neuroscience Spotlight: Spontaneous Alpha Brain Dynamics Track the Episodic “When”
With constructive feedback our brain learns the perfect timing
Derfor går tida raskere når du har det travelt
La experiencia de estudiar bajo cero y con dos premios Nobel de Medicina
Neurospin: un recorrido por la catedral del cerebro
2022
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PosterBecu, Marcia Constance Noemi; Bonnevie, Tora; Polti, Ignacio; Jarholm, Jonas Alexander; Grøntvedt, Gøril Rolfseng; Bråthen, Geir. (2022) Entorhinal grid-like representation in early Alzheimer's disease: association with biomarkers concentration and genetic risk. Society for Neuroscience 2022 2022-11-12 - 2022-11-12
2018
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PosterPolti, Ignacio; Nau, Matthias; Kaplan, R; van Wassenhove, Virginie; Doeller, Christian. (2018) The role of hexadirectional coding in spatiotemporal integration. Society for Neuroscience Neuroscience 2018 , San Diego, California 2018-11-03 - 2018-11-07