Human infants need to apprehend much novel sensory information to rapidly engage in adaptive social communication and develop efficient social cognition. In particular, making sense of others’ faces is a challenging task for the immature infant visual system that requires experience to reach full achievement. In this context, olfaction is a functional sensory modality that conveys prior knowledge about conspecifics able to constrain the interpretation of ambiguous visual inputs. Moreover, odors are temporally and spatially stable cues that may improve the generalization of more variable face exemplars into a single category. Accordingly, the main hypothesis of the ODORINFACE project is that experience brought by olfaction during early social interactions is decisive to shape the development of face perception. Based on a pilot study showing that maternal odor enhances a face-selective response in the 4-month-old infant brain, the project will delineate the mechanisms subtending odor-driven early tuning of face perception. To meet this objective, ODORINFACE will isolate and quantify electroencephalographic (EEG) signatures of face perception in each individual infant by means of a frequency-tagging approach. Four working tasks will precisely investigate the contribution of 4 mechanisms according to 4 principles of multisensory integration: TASK 1 will determine which odor cues in maternal odor help perceive faces (intersensory redundancy); TASK 2 will evaluate whether infants’ early olfactory experience modulates face perception (developmental timing); TASK 3 will explore whether odors facilitate the perception of visual inputs as faces by improving face categorization processes (disambiguation); TASK 4 will determine the decline of the maternal odor effect over the progressive maturation of the face perception system (inverse effectiveness). ODORINFACE represents an innovative project of high feasibility which responds to basic issues on the early multisensory development of face perception in the light of a generally neglected sensory modality (i.e., olfaction). It uses an original methodological approach (i.e., frequency-tagging) to quantify EEG markers of face perception in the infant brain. Overall, this project offers new perspectives to understand and evaluate a critical function of the early social development that will undoubtedly provide numerous outcomes at both scientific and socioeconomic/societal levels, especially for clinical practices dealing with (a)typical social-cognitive development.

The formulation of healthy food acceptable by the consumer is penalized because flavor perception, which is built in our brain through integratory processes and which mainly drives food acceptability, is so far still unpredictable. In AROMA project I will investigate one strategy of sugar/salt reduction using aroma (OITE) -with a focus on a specific population (obese vs normal-weight), to unravel the key brain mechanisms of mental representation of food (flavor perception). This system will be investigated with a set of complementary brain imaging technics and a multidisciplinary approach: from food model formulation to brain imaging, including sensory evaluation. AROMA will provide valuable insights and new results: (1) on the key mechanisms of flavor perception through the prism of obesity and (2) on the validation of OITE as a strategy to reduce salt and sugar in food for a variety of consumers and (3) on proofed method in Neurosciences to study OITE.

An increasing body of evidence indicates that microbes, which live closely associated with animals, significantly influence their behavior. The extreme complexity of the nervous system of animals combined with the extraordinary microbial diversity are two major obstacles to understand, at the molecular level, how microbes modulate animal behavior. We use the relatively simple and genetically tractable model Drosophila to tackle this problem. Our previous studies have shown that, by interacting with neurons, a bacteria-derived compound called peptidoglycan can modify the behavior of the infected host. Although we have evidence that PGN can modulate both brain and sensory neurons, the molecular mechanisms transducing the PGN signal inside these neurons and the neuronal circuitry by which they modify host behavior remain unknown. We propose to combine the latest technics in genome editing, bioinformatics, imaging, and genetic to provide some answers to these questions.

MACARON addresses a new and fundamental question: the role of the oral mucosa (OM) in flavour perception (Axe 1.5, LS09, keywords: flavour and sensoriality). It also considers for the first time the role of MUC1, a tethered mucin expressed at the surface of the oral epithelial cells, in the structure and properties of the mucosal pellicle (MP) and flavour perception, focusing on astringency and aroma perception. MACARON takes the comprehension and characterization of astringency perception to new levels by exploring the current and new hypotheses of its molecular basis and by integrating both cross-molecular and cross-modal interactions with the aroma perception. Indeed, we propose that MUC1, as a signalling protein, is involved in the molecular mechanisms underpinning the perception of astringency via structural modifications (i.e., cleavage of its two subunits), initiating an intracellular calcium signal that leads to the release of neurotransmitters. We also suggest that the composition of the MP determines its properties and thus its ability to interact with aroma compounds and that the MP aggregation by astringent compounds impacts MP-aroma compound interactions. MACARON also considers the cerebral integration of these two multimodalities of flavour to understand how aroma and astringency perceptions impact each other. These scientific questions are declined into 7 objectives that will be reach through a strategy based on the development of different experimental systems, including a model of the oral mucosa, protein models and a device for in vitro tribological experiments. This strategy results in a 4-year project divided into 4 main work packages (WPs), plus 1 WP dedicated to coordination and 1 WP dedicated to dissemination. This organization aims to compare in vitro and in vivo results to validate the model of the oral mucosa and to investigate flavour molecular mechanisms. MACARON is also a multidisciplinary project and its partnership combined expertise of (i) food chemistry and perception, biochemistry and analytical chemistry of proteins and aroma compounds from team 1 of the “Centre des Sciences du Goût et de l’Alimentation” (CSGA) (P1a); (ii) biochemistry, molecular biology and calcium imaging from the CSGA’s team 2 (P1b); (iii) cutting-edge microscopic techniques, including atomic force microscopy-based techniques, from the “Institute Carnot de Bourgogne” (P2) and (iv) tribology from the “Laboratoire de Tribology et de Dynamique des Systèmes” (P3) to explore hypotheses on the origin of astringency and solutions based on aroma to modulate its intensity. It is the first time that a project will merge these expertises to elucidate the molecular basis of astringency and will merge physic measurements of friction forces at the micro- and nanometric scales while considering for the first time the associated vibratory signal. Thus, MACARON will provide a breakthrough in the role of the oral mucosa in astringency and aroma persistence, which are two important modalities of flavour. The output of MACARON on the role of the MP in flavour perception, while considering multimodal integration of flavour, will enable new solutions for the development of food products to be proposed.

Retinopathy of prematurity (ROP) is the leading cause of blindness in children. This disease is characterized by inflammatory processes and abnormalities in vascular development of the retina. Preliminary results from our laboratories and published data show that specific lipids, such as plasmalogens and endocannabinoids, can regulate inflammatory processes as well as the development of blood vessels in different tissues. The EndoROP project brings together specialists in lipid metabolisms, inflammation and angiogenesis in the retina. It will characterize in details the place of plasmalogens and endocannabinoids in the regulation of retinal vascular development in ROP by: 1) understanding the plasmalogen-dependent molecular mechanisms by which endocannabinoids regulate retinal vascular development in physiologic conditions (Work-Package 1) ; 2) deciphering the cellular and molecular mechanisms involving plasmalogens and endocannabinoids in the pathologic conditions of ROP (Work-Package 2), and 3) identifying new therapeutic targets and develop new therapeutic approaches to prevent or to limit the retinal vascular abnormalities observed in ROP (Work-Package 3). Altogether, our project will document the molecular mechanisms by which plasmalogens regulate the endocannabinoid system in the retina and offer new therapeutic strategies to prevent ROP in premature infants.