Projects

Summary

Flexible, purposeful behavior requires a cognitive control system that can select and contextually adjust action-relevant information in short and long-term memory. Experimental data with animals and preliminary results with human subjects indicate that neuromodulatory areas in the brain stem and basal forebrain play a critical role in the cognitive control of memory, and that these control processes utilize the neurotransmitters dopamine, acetylcholine and nor-adrenaline. Using functional and structural imaging, and taking into account genetic polymorphisms, normal and dysfunctional neuromodulations associated with the control of memory in humans will be comprehensively examined in six subprojects. The goal of the clinical research group is to develop behaviorially-relevant pharmacological therapies for dysfunctional memory control in the elderly, as well as in patients with attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder, schizophrenia, obsessive-compulsive disorder, and frontal or temporal lobes lesions.

Project 1
Cholinergic and dopaminergic neuromodulation of the active representation and adaptive coding of novelty
Prof. Dr. med. Emrah Duzel

Project 2
Cognitive Control of Memory Recall by Healthy Patients and Patients with Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder
Prof. Dr. Thomas F. Munte

Project 3
Regulation of the Early Detection of Novelty by Prediction and Motivation.
Dr. med. Bjorn Schott/ Prof. Dr. med. Emrah Duzel

Project 4
Selective Encoding in Emotional Contexts:
Interactions in prefrontal control and nor-adrenaline mediated neuromodulation.
Dr. rer. nat. Daniela Fenker/ PD. Dr. Jens-Max Hopf/ Prof. Dr. med. Hans-Jochen Heinze

Project 5
The Importance of Interference, Stimulus Saliency and Motivation for Memory Formation in Patients with Attention Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (AD/HD)
Prof. Dr. Hermann Hinrichs/ Prof. Dr. Dr. Lioba Baving/ Dr. Kerstin Krauel

Project 6
Representation in Working Memory and the Coding of Novelty in Paranoid Hallucinatory Schizophrenia
Dr. Kolja Schiltz/ Prof. Dr. Bernhard Bogerts