[Publications]

Five most relevant publications: 

• A. Lopez-Persem, S. Moreno-Rodriguez, M. Ovando-Tellez, T. Bieth, S. Guiet, J. Brochard, and E. Volle. How Subjective Idea Valuation Energizes and Guides Creative Idea Generation. American Psychologist, 2023.

• A. Lopez-Persem, L. Roumazeilles, D.Folloni, K.Marche, E. Fouragnan, N. Khalighinejad, M. Rushworth, J. Sallet. Differential Functional connectivity underlying asymmetric reward-related cortical activity in the orbito-medial prefrontal cortex. PNAS. 2020.

• A. Lopez-Persem, J. Bastin, M. Petton, R. Abitbol, K. Lehongre, C. Adam, V. Navarro, S. Rheims, P. Kahane, P. Domenech, M. Pessiglione “Four Core Properties of the Human Brain Valuation System Demonstrated in Intracranial Signals”. Nature Neuroscience, 2020. (download open pdf here)

• A. Lopez-Persem, L. Rigoux, S. Bourgeois-Gironde, J. Daunizeau, M. Pessiglione. Choose, rate or squeeze: comparison of economic value functions elicited by different behavioral tasks. Plos Computational Biology, 2017. 

•  A. Lopez-Persem, P. Domenech, M. Pessiglione. How prior preferences determine decision-making frames and biases in the human brain; eLife. 2016. 

For the full list: see google scholar

[Book chapterS]

• A. Lopez-Persem & M.Khamassi, "Décision et action", in Neurosciences cognitives, De Boeck 2021

• T. Bieth, A. Lopez-Persem, M. Ovando-Tellez, M.Urbansky, E. Volle, "Creativity", in Intraoperative mapping of cognitive networks, Springer 2021 

• M. Lebreton & A. Lopez-Persem, « Anatomy and Disorders of Decision-Making ». In Reference Module in Neuroscience and Biobehavioral Psychology. Elsevier, 2020

[CV]

Scientific career & Education

Professional experience

• 01/01/2022 - Now: Researcher (CRCN INSERM)

Laboratory: CreaTeam, FrontLab, Paris Brain Institute (ICM)

• 01/02/2020 – 31/12/2021: Post-doctoral Research Associate

Laboratory: CreaTeam, FrontLab, Paris Brain Institute (ICM)

• 01/03/2017 – 31/01/2020: Post-doctoral Research Associate

Laboratory: Sallet lab and Rushworth Lab, Department of Experimental Psychology, University of Oxford, UK

Project: Morphological and functional connectivity investigation of the Orbito-Medial Prefrontal Cortex, a key component of the Brain Valuation System.

• 01/10/2012 – 31/12/2016: Ph.D. student position (ED3C doctoral Program, Sorbonne University)

Laboratory: Motivation, Brain and Behavior team with Mathias Pessiglione, Institut du Cerveau (ICM, Paris Brain Institute), Paris, France

Thesis project: The Brain Valuation System and its role in decision-making. PhD thesis.

• 01/09/2011 – 30/06/2016: M.Sc. student

Laboratory: Motivation, Brain and Behavior team with Mathias Pessiglione and Jean Daunizeau, Institut du Cerveau (ICM), Paris, France

Dissertation title: Comparing behavioral measures of subjective value.

• Undergraduate internships

  • • 01/07/2011 – 31/08/2011: Knight Lab, Helen Wills Neuroscience Institute, University of Berkeley, USA

    • 01/01/2011 – 30/06/2011: Frontal Lobe Functions’ Group with Etienne Koechlin, Laboratoire de Neurosciences Cognitives (LNC), Ecole Normale Supérieure (ENS), Paris, France

    • 01/09/2010 – 01/12/2010: Visuo-spatial attention Group with Paolo Bartolomeo, Centre de Recherche de l’Institut du Cerveau (ICM), Paris, France

    • 01/06/2010 – 31/08/2010: Neurophysiology and Behavior Unit with Philippe Faure, Laboratoire de Neurobiologie des Processus Adaptatifs (NPA), Sorbonne University, Paris, France

Education

• 2012 – 2016: PhD in Cognitive Neuroscience with Félicitations du Jury (French un-official best honours), Sorbonne University, (former Université Pierre et Marie Curie (UPMC), Paris VI)

• 2010 – 2012: Master’s degree in Cognitive Sciences with honours (Master Recherche en Sciences Cognitives), ENS, Paris V, EHESS.

• 2007 – 2010: Bachelor of Science in Biology with honours, Sorbonne University.

Invited presentations

• 07/05/2024: Invited talk at the CRNL conference, Lyon, France

• 07/12/2023: Invited talk at the Learning and Decision-Making lab, Center for Mind and Brain, University of California, Davis, USA (online)

• 23/11/2023: Invited talk at the Research Colloquium of Psychology, University of Hamburg, Germany (online)

• 13/10/2023: Invited talk at the MCC conference, Lyon, France

• 12/09/2023: Mini-talk at the MIC conference, Trieste, Italy (online)

• 16/05/2023: Invited talk at the ERC "Consciousbrain" Kickoff Workshop (Claire Sergent), Paris, France

• 05/05/2023: Invited talk at Chetelat's lab, Normandie Univ, UNICAEN, Caen, France

• 27/04/2023: Invited talk at PRISME platform, at the Paris Brain Institute, Paris, France 

• 03/02/2023: Brain Meetings, (Tobias Hauser Lab) Wellcome Centre for Human Neuroimaging, University College London, UK

• 13/12/2022: Comparative Psychology colloquium, Institute of Experimental Psychology, Heinrich Heine University, Düsseldorf, Germany

• 03/12/2022: Invited talk at the Motivation Brain and Behavior team, at the Paris Brain Institute, Paris, France 

• 18/10/2022: Symposium 'Motivation, Cerveau et comportement', Société de Biologie, Paris, France

• 19/09/2022: Symposium 'Variability and bias in decision-making', ENS, Paris, France

• 16/09/2022: Art et Médecine Journée, Académie Nationale de Médecine, Paris, France 

• 30/06/2022: Journée Neurologie Psychiatrie Neurosciences (JNPN), Paris, France 

• 12/05/2022: Society for Neuroscience of Creativity meeting, online

• 17/03/2022: Internal seminar of the Paris Brain Institute, Paris, France

• 14/02/2022: Internal Seminar of the Human Reinforcement Learning team, ENS, Paris, France

• 29/10/2021: Scientific day on ''La recherche aux temps de la COVID", Online (flash)

• 26/07/2021: Cognitive Science Society meeting, online (flash)

• 07/05/2020: Brain Fuel Seminar, ICM, online

• 31/10/2019: Global Excellence seminar, Danish Research Center for Magnetic Resonance (DRCMR), Copenhagen, Denmark

• 22/05/2019: Neurofrance 2019 (French Society for Neuroscience meeting), Marseille, France

• 22/11/2018: Experimental Psychology Early Career Researcher Departmental Seminar, Oxford, UK

• 30/07/2018: Data Blitz presentation at the European Behavioral Pharmacology Society (EBPS) Workshop (Animal and Human Behavior: Using Computational Approaches to Build a Two-way Bridge), Cambridge, UK

• 05/06/2018: BEACON Seminars, Department of Experimental Psychology, University of Oxford, UK

• 21/05/2018: Symposium of Biology of Decision Making (SBDM) 2018, Paris, France

• 05/10/2017: “Computational Psychiatry” seminar, Max Planck UCL Centre, London, UK

• 03/05/2017: Human Information Processing Lab, Dept of Experimental Psychology, University of Oxford, UK

• 25/01/2017: Action and Decision Lab, Dept of Experimental Psychology, University of Oxford, UK

Organisation of international conferences

• 05/2019: Symposium of Biology of Decision Making, Oxford, UK ~250 participants

• 05/2015: Symposium of Biology of Decision Making, Paris, France ~200 participants

• 05/2014: Symposium of Biology of Decision Making, Paris, France ~200 participants

• 09/2013: Neural circuits for adaptive control of behavior (MCC 2013), Paris, France ~200 participants

PRIZE

• 03/2021: Fondation des Treilles - Young researcher prize

Funding

• 2022-2023: Marie Sklodowska-Curie Actions- Horizon 2020, Individual Fellowship;

• 2021: Paris Region Fellowship Program, Individual Fellowship;

• 2021 – 2023: PHC-PROCORE 2021 (Partenariat Hubert Curien); Travel grant in collaboration with Dr Bolton Chau, Hong Kong; 

• 09/2017 – 09/2018: FRM, French foundation for clinical research, one-year post-doctoral fellowship; 

• 10/2015 – 10/2016: LabEx BioPsy. Biology for Psychiatry Laboratory of Excellence, fellowship for a fourth year of PhD; 

• 10/2012 – 09/2015: DGA, French Armament Procurement Agency, Ministry of Defense. Three-year PhD fellowship; 

Teaching

• 2020 - Now: Tutorials on various statistical analyses and computational model to students and lab members. 

• 2015 – Now: Tutorials (oral presentation, written explanations) on Bayesian Model inversions and comparisons using the VBA toolbox.

• 01/09/2013 – 30/06/2015: Teaching assistant in Sorbonne University for undergraduate and graduate students, on scientific information skills and bibliography methodology in the BUPMC (Libraries of the Sorbonne University).

 Student supervision

• From 04/2024: Jeanne Lobre, Master's student, co-supervised with Dr Emmanuelle Volle. Project: Investigating the impact of semantic representations in creativity: problem-solving or combining associations?

• From 09/2023: Julie Tang, Master's student (Cogmaster), co-surpervised with Dr Fabien Vinckier. Project: Creativity as a mean to explore thought processing disorders in schizophrenia.

• From 10/2023: Gino Battistello, PhD student. Project: Unravelling the interference between decision-making processes and affects in creativity.

• 09/2023 - Now: Shivekiar Tashchioglu, Master's student (M2 Cogmaster). Project: Navigating memory in search for creative ideas: a behavioral investigation

• 07/2023-08/2023: Noémie Guisnel, Visiting student. Project: Online experiment programming.

• 09/2022 - 06/2023: Gino Battistello, Master's student (M2 Cogmaster). Project: Pictorial creativity:  from words to drawings.

• 09/2022 - 02/2023: David Laille, Master's student (M2 Learning Planet Institute). Project: Computational modelling of creativity processes.

• 05/2022 - 06/2022: Vedika Basavatia, Master's student (Columbia University Neuroscience of Consciousness Summer Program). Project: 'The urge to dance: setting up an experiment to record mobile EEG during dancing'.

• 02/2022 - 03/2022: Declan Grindrod, Master's student. Project: fMRI data collection and literature review.

• 11/2021 - Now: Sarah Moreno, PhD student, co-supervised with Emmanuelle Volle. Project: Decision-making biases in creativity.

• 07/2021 - 08/2021: Tess Brogard, Master's student. Project: Behavioral data collection and literature review.

• 09/2020 - 03/2021: Sarah Moreno, Master's student, co-supervised with Emmanuelle Volle. Project: Behavioral investigation of decision-making processes during creativity.

• 02/2020 - 08/2020: Stella Guiet, Master's student (M2 Cogmaster), co-supervised with Emmanuelle Volle. Project: Valuation processes in creativity: A behavioral investigation.

Public engagement

• 02-06/2023: Participation in the Mind-to-Image project, led by Obvious. Explained in "Le Monde" and others, related to this article.

• 04/2024: Paroles de Chercheuses et Chercheurs, intervention au Lycée Samuel Beckett de La Ferté-sous-Jouarre

• 09/2023: Round table on How creativity (re) defines itself in the age of Artificial Intelligence, organized by Les AJITES (Art Club), ICM.

• 09/2023: Interview for Les Echos Weekend, on creativity

• 09/2023: Interview for The Daily Swile, on creativity

• 08/2023: Interview for "Le Monde", on how our preferences impact our creativity, related to this article.

• 07/2023: Realisation and diffusion of a video (in French) explaining how our preferences impact our creativity.

• 05/2023: Interview for France Culture (french radio).

• 03/2023: Creativity MasterClass participation.

• 02/2023: Presentation at the CMNE foundation for its 10 years anniversary.

• 05/2022: Interview for the Naked Scientist

• 04/2022: Paroles de Chercheuses et Chercheurs, intervention au Lycée Henri Becquerel de Nangis

• 04/2022: Scientific day of the ED3C doctoral school.

• 01/2022: Interview Phosphore (french)

• 11/2021: Interview (french) for DW Podcast

• 11/2021: Interview (french) for Interglitches organized by the FrenchRestream

• 09/2021: Interview for the french media Science et Vie

• 2021: Realisation and diffusion of a video (in French) explaining the impact of COVID-19 lockdown on creativity. English version is available here.

• 05/2021: Interview (french) for the brochure-manifeste sur la créativité du Centre Chorégraphique National de Rillieux-la-Pape 

• 05/2021: Interview (french) as a laureate of the Paris Region Fellowship Programme

• 03/2020: Brain Week in the Paris Brain Institute (Cancelled due to COVID-19 pandemic), workshop on the ways to investigate creativity in neuroscientific laboratories.

• 02/2020: Video interview organized by the Communication Department of the Paris Brain Institute to explain the results obtained in Lopez-Persem et al, Nat Neuro 2020 (currently in post-processing).

• 07/2018: Work experience program at the Wellcome Centre for Integrative Neuroimaging for high school students. “Decision-making in the brain”.

• 08/2017: Media interview for Lessaventurieres.com on my PhD thesis for a women’s entrepreneurship coaching program.