Prof. Dr. Martin Vinck
The Vinck Lab’s research focused on three approaches: circuits, collectives, and learning. The lab’s work was supported by the ERC and BMF.
Circuits: The researchers investigated how different types of excitatory and inhibitory neurons regulate brain plasticity and how they contribute to flexible information processing.
Collectives: The lab investigated how collectives of neurons encode information through spatiotemporal activity patterns and, in particular, what role spike sequences and bursts play in this process. In addition, the researchers were interested in the relationship between spontaneous neural activity (e.g., during dreaming) and neural activity triggered by sensory perceptions (hearing, seeing, etc.).
Learning: The scientists investigated how the brain learns based on predictions about the immediate future, how the brain recognizes objects based on their properties, and what role recurrent networks play in this process. To answer these questions, the researchers used a wide range of methods and approaches, such as machine learning, to model predictable relationships between sensory input across space and time. The lab developed algorithms to enable unsupervised clustering in multidimensional neural data and new methods for evaluating electrophysiological data. In their work, the researchers applied information theory and neural network theory. The scientists collected the data for the models using electrophysiological recordings across all cortical layers and from several brain sections simultaneously. Using optogenetic methods, they identified subtypes of cells, such as interneurons with specific projection patterns.
Prof. Dr. David Poeppel
The overall goal of the research program was to develop a theoretically motivated, computationally explicit, and biologically realistic perspective on auditory cognition (including music), speech perception, and language comprehension. The work proceeded on three fronts:
(i) basic physiological properties of human cortex (non-invasive studies of neural encoding);
(ii) hearing and speech perception (psychophysical and neurobiological approaches); and
(iii) neurobiological foundations of language.
These three areas of inquiry are closely related, although not all of the work was necessarily of an interdisciplinary nature. The lab used all available cognitive neuroscience tools. The main methods employed included electrophysiological recordings using magnetoencephalography (MEG), electroencephalography (EEG), and electrocorticography (ECoG), as well as imaging studies using structural and functional magnetic resonance imaging (MRI).
Prof. Dr. Pascal Fries
Networks of neurons typically engage in rhythmic, synchronized activity. Neuronal synchronization likely affects neuronal processing. If so, evolution has probably selected functional synchronization and mechanisms for its adaptive modulation. The Lab studied neuronal synchronization’s mechanisms, its consequences and its cognitive functions.
Prof. Dr. Ilka Diester
The Lab investigated the interaction between brain areas involved in tactile perception (somatosensory input), cognitive processing, and movement generation (motor output) in order to understand basic principles of the brain and ultimately to advance the design of neural prostheses. The Group addressed these research goals with behavioral tests and electrophysiological and optogenetic tools in the mammalian brain.
Dr. Michael C. Schmid
Work in the Schmid lab was centered on investigating the fundamental brain principles that lead to visual perception. The researchers were particularly interested in understanding how visibility arises from the communication of neurons in different brain areas, how processes that occur during attention might support it and how it is affected after neural injury. Their aim was to describe these functions with a specific focus on the thalamus, one of the brain’s major relay systems. To delineate the dynamics by which thalamus and cortex interact with each other they combined parallel electrophysiological recording methods in the mammalian brain with complementary techniques ranging from psychophysics and fMRI to pharmacology and optogenetics.
