To get to Institut Pasteur using public transportation, you can take the metro line 6 and get off at the Pasteur station, which is just a few minutes' walk from the institute.
Comparative Brain Meeting
27–30 April 2026, Institut Pasteur, Paris
Comparative Brain Meeting 2026
The Comparative Brain Meeting aims at stimulating exchanges on brain evolution, its organisation, and development and comparative analyses across the tree of life. It unites researchers from diverse backgrounds, exploring various species and employing a wide range of data modalities and scales, from cell counts to behaviour. Our goal is to facilitate cross-lab collaborations, share methods for comparative neuroanatomy, and build a coherent framework and a community for comparative neuroscience. This hybrid event offers both in-person and virtual participation. Join us in advancing the frontiers of comparative brain research.
The meeting will take place 27–30 April 2026 at Institut Pasteur, 28 rue du Dr Roux, 75015 Paris. It will combine several topics: comparative MRI, comparative brain beyond MRI, fossils, histology, connectivity, brain development and behaviour, and a Hackathon Day to discuss questions and challenges that emerged from the meeting and start collaborative projects.
Programme — 27–30 April 2026
The meeting spans 3 days of talks and poster sessions (27–29 April), followed by a Hackathon Day (30 April) to discuss questions & challenges that will have emerged from the meeting and start collaborative projects.
Here, you can find the program for the 3 days with scheduled presentations. The Hackathon day has no schedule to give space to spontaneous discussion and unconferences around coffee & croissants and a gigantic white board.
Schedule
Day 1 — Monday 27 April
Welcome
9:00–9:05
Katja Heuer, Roberto Toro, Julia Sliwa — Welcome & Introduction
Opening Keynote
9:05–9:40
Mari Sepp — An Evo-Devo view of the mammalian cerebellum: from cellular diversity to gene regulatory programs
Macro-Evolution & Fossils
9:45–10:10
Robert Barton & Chris Venditti — What evolutionary rates reveal about brain structure and function
10:10–10:30
Amélie Beaudet — Brain evolution within the hominin lineage
10:30–10:55
Victor Giolland & Ameline Bardo — Brain-behaviour coevolution
Coffee break
10:55–11:20
Brain Cells, Numbers & Diversity
11:20–11:55
Paul Manger — Dorsal thalamus across 76 mammals: somatosensory thalamus and somatosensory cortex volumes
11:55–12:20
Pavel Nemec & Kristina Kverkova — Evolution of neuron numbers in vertebrates and effect of domestication on cellular brain composition
Poster Flash Talks
12:20–12:55
All poster presenters — 2-minute flash presentations (16 posters)
Lunch break
13:00–14:00
Poster Session I
14:00–14:35
Open poster viewing
Principles of Brain Organisation
14:45–15:05
Ornella Bertrand — The impact of gliding on the evolution of squirrel brains: a perspective from endocasts
15:05–15:25
Katja Heuer — An evolutionary perspective on the emergence of brain anatomy and cognition
15:25–15:45
Rogier Mars (online) — Cross-species neuroscience: From comparative to clinical
15:45–16:05
Camille Giacometti — Pareto task inference reveals neurochemical trade-offs in the macaque brain
16:05–16:25
Henry Evrard — Comparative organisation of the interoceptive pathways and insular cortex
Coffee break
16:25–16:50
Neural Architecture of Language & Motivation
16:50–17:25
Angela Friederici — Neural architecture of language
17:25–17:50
Alfred Anwander & Yannick Becker — Evolutionary connectivity: ultra-high resolution dMRI and the arcuate fascicle across great apes
17:50–18:10
Sébastien Bouret — Using comparative anatomy to bridge the gap between cognition and behavioral ecology in primates
Open Discussion — 18:10–18:30
End of Day 1
18:30
Dinner
Day 2 — Tuesday 28 April
Language Evolution & Communication
9:00–9:35
Cédric Boeckx — Evolution of the language-ready brain
9:35–9:55
Catherine Crockford — Assessing primate vocal behaviour for brain studies
9:55–10:15
Adrien Meguerditchian — Longitudinal development of handedness and its brain specialisation in baboons
10:15–10:35
Andrea Ravignani — Evolving brains: towards integrative knowledge from cognitive neuroscience and ethological fieldwork
Coffee break
10:35–11:00
The Social Brain
11:00–11:20
Julia Sliwa — Neuroimaging the primate social brain
11:20–11:40
Sébastien Ballesta — Toward neuroanatomical and cognitive foundations of social tolerance across macaque species
11:40–12:00
Marius Braunsdorf — Social structure shapes macroscale white matter organisation in macaques
12:00–12:20
Rui Oliveira — Artificial selection for sociality drives the evolution of neuronal numbers and brain activity in zebrafish
12:20–12:40
Magda Teles — Early social environment regulates brain structure and function in zebrafish
Discussion: Social Brain & Communication — 12:40–13:00
Lunch break
13:00–14:00
Poster Session II
14:00–14:30
Open poster viewing
Connectomics, Neural Dynamics & Circuits
14:30–15:05
Moritz Helmstaedter — Cerebral Cortex Connectomics
15:05–15:40
Marieke Schölvinck & Martha Havenith — Inferring internal states across mice, monkeys and humans
15:40–16:00
Stefan Everling — Chemogenetic modulation of the marmoset pregenual anterior cingulate cortex
Coffee break
16:00–16:25
Comparative Brain Structure & Connectivity
16:25–16:45
Shaun Warrington — High-resolution diffusion MRI tractography in the NHP brain using a human 10.5T scanner
16:45–17:05
Maëlig Chauvel — Sulcus-based topology of short-range white matter in humans and chimpanzees
17:05–17:25
William Hopkins — Brain aging in chimpanzees, rhesus monkeys and baboons
17:25–17:45
Michel Mickael — The brain barriers: evolution and role of immune cell migration regulation
17:45–18:05
Alexandra de Sousa — Do expensive brain regions increase less in humans?
Discussion: Cross-Cutting Themes — 18:05–18:30
End of Day 2
18:30
Dinner
Day 3 — Wednesday 29 April
Development & Evo-Devo
9:00–9:35
Denis Jabaudon — Cortical neuron diversification
9:35–9:55
Alex Donovan — How the human neuroepithelium transitions to neurogenesis
9:55–10:15
Idoia Quintana Urzainqui — The shark embryo as a model to study the origin and evolution of the vertebrate brain
10:15–10:35
Roberto Toro — Mechanical morphogenesis of brain folding
Coffee break
10:35–11:00
Cetacean Brains
11:00–11:20
Kamilla Souza — Cetacean brains in Brazil
Broader Brains for Broader Research
A joint session with Tommaso Gerussi, Jean-Marie Graïc, Nina Patzke, Mehdi Behroozi & Anastasia Tsingotjidou. Each presenter covers a different aspect (~12 min each + group discussion).
11:20–12:30
Tsingotjidou, Gerussi, Behroozi, Graïc, Patzke — The use of large brains in neuroscience
Carnivoran Brains I
12:30–12:50
Laszlo Garamszegi — The evolution of brain size and shape in dogs (including ancient dogs)
Lunch break
12:50–13:50
Poster Session III
13:50–14:20
Open poster viewing
Carnivoran Brains & Brain Aging
14:20–14:40
Erin Hecht — Brain-behaviour evolution in domestic dogs
14:40–15:00
Magdalena Boch — Dog social brain
15:00–15:20
Christine Charvet (online) — Cat brains age like humans: translating time shows pet cats as natural models for human aging
Coffee break
15:20–15:45
Methods & Tools
15:45–16:05
Clément Garin — EvoDevo NeuroImaging Explorer (EDNiX): brain evolution and development across species
16:05–16:25
Antoine Bourlier — 3DBrainMiner: an open-source platform for modelling and visualising the brain as graphs
16:25–16:45
Elodie Chaillou — Customised Brain Box (CuBBox): standardised serial brain sectioning
Coffee break
16:45–17:05
Community Session: Looking Forward
17:05–18:30
Open discussion — State of the Field & Open Questions • Perspective Piece Planning • Special Issue & Collaborative Projects
End of Day 3
18:30
Dinner
Day 4 — Thursday 30 April: Comparative Hackathon
Hackathon day Start at 10 AM
This day has no fixed schedule but is for people to connect around their topics of interest, discuss, and start collaborations. It can have a set of unconference sessions where people can spontaneously present topics that are of interest to a larger group.
Discussions
around croissant & coffee and a gigantic white board
Unconference sessions
Spontaneous presentations on the big screen or the projector that emerge from the ongoing discussions
Collaborative projects
Finding collaborators and start working on projects
Posters at the Comparative Brain Meeting
P1
Camille Pluchot — Sensory cortical mapping in voluntary awake and unrestrained sheep
P2
Clément Caporal — Cortex folding effect on pyramidal neuron shape
P3
Cosma Rost — Comparing the social brain connectome in humans and macaques
P4
Daniel Lozano — MRI-based brain atlases of representative species of vertebrates
P5
David Meunier — func_BaboFet: advanced methods for processing fetal PNH functional MRI
P6
Fatma Özge Ozkok — AI-assisted tools for comparative brain data integration
P7
Ilaria Morassut — Experience-dependent maturation of cortical cell types
P8
Jérôme Sallet — Sulcal patterns of the temporo-parietal cortex in primates
P9
Katherine Bryant — Comparative carnivoran white matter
P10
Kevin Martinez-Anhom — A unified computational model of cortical folding for the cerebrum and the cerebellum
P11
Mustafa Ozan Ozkok — Deep learning-based feature extraction for comparative brain MRI analysis
P12
Nicola Palomero-Gallagher — MEBRAINS: a multilevel macaque brain atlas
P13
Sara Binder — Modelling activation in the canine brain: establishing dog BOLD signal properties
P14
Yannick Becker & Alfred Anwander — Morphology of the auditory cortex across apes and development
P15
Yasemin Salgirli Demirbas — Approach or Avoid? Can behavioral laterality be a window into feline social behavior
P16
Yufan Wang — TBD
How to join the meeting
The onsite meeting room 🏢
We'll be in Amphitheatre Duclaux. Please present yourself at the Institut Pasteur reception, 28 rue du Dr Roux.
Your participation has been registered in the system and you will receive your badge upon presentation of an
ID card with name and photo to the reception team. Our local team will pick up small groups of participants on
a rolling basis until 9 am. Your badge will be valid for the entire duration of the meeting and you will need
it everytime you enter or exit the campus.
The online video room 🎥
We will be using Microsoft Teams. It will be monitored throughout the talk sessions so that online participants can post questions in the chat or raise their hand and join the discussion on camera. Our setup combines several devices to maintain good audio quality during the Q&A and discussion sessions. Everybody who would like to share their screen, please install the Microsoft teams app – joining just on the Web iterface has caused problems in the past.
Team of organizers
Katja Heuer (postdoc in the Neurophysiology of Social Cognition Lab, Paris Brain Institute)
@k4tj4
Roberto Toro (Applied and Theoretical Neuroanatomy lab, Institut Pasteur Paris)
@r3rt0
Julia Sliwa (Neurophysiology of Social Cognition Lab, Paris Brain Institute)
@juliasliwa
We kindly thank the sponsors of our event
Made with love ❤ Please respect the Code of Conduct.