History

The Neurofunctional Imaging Group (GIN) was created in 1989 at the Atomic Energy Commission (CEA) within the Frédéric Joliot Hospital Service in Orsay. At the initiative of three researchers, Nathalie Tzourio-Mazoyer, Bernard Mazoyer and Marc Joliot, this team was a pioneer in the emergence of functional neuroimaging in France, carrying out the first brain activation studies with positron emission tomography (PET) and then with magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). Since the mid-1990s, the GIN has also played a pioneering role in the development of population neuroimaging.

The team has a sustained contribution to the development of functional neuroimaging as a full-fledged research area, both nationally and internationally, organizing, in particular, the First International Conference on Cartography of the Human Brain in Paris in June 1995. Staff of the GIN largely contributed to the training of young researchers and engineers in this new field, supervising 38 university doctorates, structuring 4 Masters courses and organizing 5 summer schools.

In the course of 6 successive 4-year contracts with its French research agencies, and on the three sites that have hosted it, the GIN has influenced the evolutions of the domain and has contributed through over 250 articles, 60 of them over the last 5 years, including many original contributions on neural networks of language, mental imagery, visuo-spatial attention, numerical and logical activities, conscious state of rest and neuroanatomical aging. Multidisciplinary since its inception, the team has constantly developed new methodological approaches, some of which have become international standards, such as the AAL atlas, and have resulted in industrial transfers.

In 2011, the GIN moved to the University of Bordeaux, where Neurocampus is a leading site in neuroscience, enabling it to optimize its strategy and scientific ambitions. Its interaction with this community was immediately productive: founding unit of LabEx TRAIL, partner of the I-SHARE cohort of excellence on student health, it is since 2016 affiliated with LabEx BRAIN and one team of the Institute of Neurodegenerative Diseases. The GIN current project, led by researchers who have been working together for over 25 years, focuses on the study of hemispheric specialization, brain variability factors, and anatomical and intrinsic connectivity. This project, based on the management of large databases of images, is part of the very competitive field of research on the “human connectome”.

 

 

Key dates

2019 25 years of d’OHBM: the “Highlights” of Bernard Mazoyer (slideshow, coming soon the movie)

2017 Creation of a joint laboratory (GINESIS Lab) between the GIN-IMN and the Cadesis Company financed by the ANR; AAL listed as the most cited article of neuroimaging, and 2nd most cited article of the CEA; Obtaining a grant from the Medical Research Foundation for the study of white matter abnormalities; Re-election of B. Mazoyer as Chairman of OHBM

2016 Merging of GIN and IMN (UMR5293) and affiliation of GIN with LabEx BRAIN and Neurocampus; start of the MRi-Share protocol covering a sample of 2000 students; Human Brain Project grant under the FLAG-ERA tender; development the ABACI image analysis software suite for population neuroimaging and deposit at software protection agency

2015 Development of the Siemens Prisma 3T imager for population neuroimaging; A grant from the Brain Research Foundation for the establishment of NIRS

2013 Publication in TICS of a journal on hemispheric specialization

2012 Publication in Nature Genetics of the meta-analysis on the genetic variants involved in the size of the hippocampus; Neuroimage “Best paper award” for the article on resting state mental content and networks

2011 Relocation of the GIN Bordeaux and renewal of the association to CEA and CNRS (UMR5296); contribution as a founding team of LabEx TRAIL

2010 Development of WHALE a software for automatic detection and monitoring of white matter hypersignals and deposit at software protection agency

2009 Start of the BIL & GIN project, a database on hemispheric specialization acquired on 453 subjects

2008 Renewal of the association of the GIN with the CNRS and the CEA as a department of the CI-NAPS big laboratory (UMR6232)

2005 First paper on Neuroimaging genetics

2004 Renewal of the GIN association with the CNRS and the CEA (UMR6194)

2002    Publication in Neuroimage of the AAL Atlas; Dagnan-Bouveret Prize of the Academy of Moral Sciences and Politics for the book Brain and Psychology at the PUF

2001 Publication in Brain Research Bulletin of the 1st study on resting state networks

2000 Publication in Nature Neuroscience of the study of a calculating prodigy

2000 Affiliation of the team with the CNRS and the CEA (UMR6095)

1999 First fMRI brain activation studies experiments at Cyceron, and multimodal imaging PET-MRI and PET-MEG; start of the 3Cities MRI study

1997 Creation of the Organization for Human Brain Mapping, B Mazoyer elected Chairman

1996 Relocation of the GIN to the GIP Cyceron in Caen; development of cognitive neuroimaging at this platform

1995 First International Conference on Human Brain Mapping organized by the GIN at the Cité des Sciences in Paris; start of EVA-MRI survey, the first population-based neuroimaging protocol

1993 Seymour Cray Prize for Intensive Digital Computing

1990 PET applications in the study of language, eye saccades, mental imagery, computation, attention, Parkinson’s tremor, and the preoperative identification of functional areas

1989 Creation of the GIN at the CEA, Hospital Service Frédéric Joliot, Orsay; Development and realization of the first experiments in France of cerebral activation in positron emission tomography