André Bastos

In predictive coding (PC), higher-order brain areas generate predictions that are sent to lower-order sensory areas. Top-down predictions are compared with bottom-up sensory data, and mismatches evoke prediction errors. In PC, the prediction errors are encoded in layer 2/3 pyramidal neurons of sensory cortex that feed forward. The PC model has been tested with multiple recording modalities using the global–local oddball paradigm. Consistent with PC, neuroimaging studies reported prediction error responses in sensory and higher-order areas. However, recent studies of neuronal spiking suggest that genuine prediction errors emerge in prefrontal cortex (PFC). This implies that predictive processing is a more cognitive than sensory-based mechanism – an observation that challenges PC and better aligns with a framework we call predictive routing (PR).

Dr. Bastos received his PhD from the University of California, Davis (2013) where he worked with Drs. Ron Mangun and Marty Usrey on thalamocortical communication. During his PhD, Dr. Bastos was a Fulbright scholar in the laboratory of Dr. Pascal Fries at the F.C. Donders Center for Cognitive Neuroimaging in Nijmegen, The Netherlands (and later at the Ernst Strüngmann Institute in Frankfurt, Germany). His studies with Dr. Fries focused on distinct oscillatory frequencies used in feedforward vs. feedback cortical communication. He was also a visiting student with Dr. Karl Friston at Wellcome Trust Centre for Neuroimaging at University College London, where he first got interested in the theory of predictive coding. André then went on to work as a postdoctoral associate with Dr. Earl Miller at MIT and Dr. Nancy Kopell at Boston University where he used large-scale neuronal recordings to gain insight into predictive processing. He joined the faculty of Vanderbilt University in 2021 as an Assistant Professor of Psychology and member of the Vanderbilt Brain Institute (VBI). He is a recipient of the 2025 Young Investigator Award from the Cognitive Neuroscience Society.