News

This is already the fifth award for pain research that has been granted within the working group of Ulrike Bingel (A11)! We congratulate the entire working group and especially Katharina Schmidt on this great success! The news portal of the

The RUB news portal reports: When the brain stores memories of objects, it generates a characteristic activity pattern for each of them. Stress changes these memory traces. Stressful experiences are usually better remembered than neutral experiences. Researchers at the Ruhr

In the ninth episode of our podcast “Kannste vergessen?”, Rainer Holl goes on a mental journey to a very special region of the brain: the hippocampus. His travelling companions? Two experienced scientists who have been researching this at the Ruhr

In our series “Thinking outside the box” you will find articles about the world of neuroscience, bioinformatics, memory research and other exciting research fields that are not directly related to the SFB 1280. The RUB news portal reports: How could

“I’m a fan of the cerebellum” – In episode eight, presenter Rainer Holl lets researchers Melanie Mark, Professor of Behavioural Neurobiology, and Dagmar Timmann-Braun, Professor of Experimental Neurology, inspire him about a very special region of our brain: the cerebellum.

In our series “Thinking outside the box” you will find articles about the world of neuroscience, bioinformatics, memory research and other exciting research fields that are not directly related to the SFB 1280. The RUB news portal reports: Some people

The news portal of the RUB reports: The teams led by Melanie Mark from the RUB Behavioural Neurobiology group and Stefan Herlitze from the RUB Department of General Zoology and Neurobiology published their new discovery in the journal Nature Communications

The RUB news portal reports: Why do we have a memory? According to current research, it’s not just for reminiscing about the past. Our brain stores experiences in order to be able to derive predictions for the future. If these

“I am still confused, but on a higher level” – In the seventh episode of our podcast “Kannste vergessen?”, Harald Lachnit, Professor of Experimental & Clinical Biopsychology at the Philipps University of Marburg and Head of Project 15 of our Collaborative

The news portal of the University of Duisburg-Essen reports: The “Experimental Neurology” research group of Prof. Dr. Dagmar Timmann (A05, F02) is one of the recruiting centers for an international research project on ultra-high-field MRI. The project “Spinocerebellar ataxias: Advanced

With the strong focus on the functioning of bird brains, animal experiments are indispensable for the SFB 1280, and all researchers are equally aware of their great responsibility. Every planned experiment is preceded by careful ethical consideration and evaluation in

In episode six, presenter and amateur neurologist Rainer Holl welcomes technical wizards Tobias Otto, graduate engineer, and Thomas Ernst, doctor of neurology and graduate physicist, who enter the engine room of the Collaborative Research Centre with him. Together, they start the engines

Soon, the SFB 1280 will have a new MAGNETOM Terra 7T MRI scanner at its disposal, which will enable particularly high-resolution images of the human brain. The 20-tonne, 7.5-million-euro device is located at the Erwin-Hahn-Institute for Magnetic Resonance Imaging in

We are pleased to announce that Onur Güntürkün (A01, F01) has been accepted as a new full member of the Berlin-Brandenburg Academy of Sciences and Humanities since June 2021. Further information on the Academy can be found at: https://www.bbaw.de/en/ Original

The new Research Network “Cerebellum and Emotional Networks” (CEN) starts with the support of the European Research Council. Here, 7 leading universities, including the University Hospital Essen, are coming together to gain a detailed insight into the functioning of the

The RUB news portal reports: Healthy people are not only able to remember past events: they can also use these memory contents to plan their future. The ability to mentally travel through time, i.e. to mentally relive past experiences and

We congratulate former Junior Professor Armin Zlomuzica (A13) on his appointment to the Chair of Behavioural and Clinical Neuroscience at the RUB and look forward to further insights from his research as project leader of A13. Learn more about his

How can genes be switched on and off? For the fifth episode of our podcast “Kannste vergessen?”, Rainer Holl welcomes Robert Kumsta, Professor of Genetic Psychology at the Ruhr University in Bochum. Look forward to a crash course in epigenetics! Learn

The SFB 1280 goes into the next round! We are pleased to announce that another funding period has been approved by the German Research Foundation (DFG) for the SFB 1280. This means that there is nothing standing in the way

This year’s European Meeting of Human Fear Conditioning (EMHFC) took place under special conditions from 17 May to 19 May. Nevertheless, it was an instructive and interesting digital event with 25 discussions and talks as well as 67 poster presentations,

From the fourth to the fifth of May, the first Berlin-Bochum Memory Symposium took place. SFB 1280, 1315, 874 and 2812 came together online to share and discuss research highlights. In addition, it was decided that all Collaborative Research Centres

We are pleased to announce that Onur Güntürkün’s (A01, F02) research will be supported by an Advanced Grant from the European Research Council (ERC) for the next five years! How does thinking arise in a brain that is structured so

A commentary by Christian Merz (A09): Under pressure in my everyday research life are my colleagues, students or even myself, although partly for different reasons. We all have in common that in uncertain times we have to learn again and

Feeling unwell, depressed mood, fever – how does the body communicate with the brain? Rainer Holl’s guests Franziska Labrenz and Harald Engler have answers to this question in the fourth episode of our podcast “Kannste Vergessen? Labrenz is a postdoctoral

In the third episode of our podcast “Kannste vergessen?” host Rainer Holl is impressed by the high-end MRI and EEG studies that biopsychologist Erhan Genç and neuropsychologist Marie-Christin Fellner are conducting as part of SFB 1280 to better understand the

The News Portal of the RUB reports:People who are forced to learn do not remember as much as someone who practices on their own. An international research team, which includes Prof. Dr. Nikolai Axmacher (A02, A03, F02) from the Bochum

“Learned material sticks better if you’ve gone for a run afterwards” – this is Rainer Holl’s lyrical conclusion towards the end of the second episode of our podcast “Kannste vergessen”. In episode two, the poetry slammer talks with Dr Marcella

Back in 2016, Ioannidis et al. presented a bibliometric score (composite score) consisting of six indicators to assess the scientific impact of researchers. This year, the results for 2019 were published and among the top 2% of the most cited

We are happy to announce the launch of the new podcast “Kannste Vergessen”! The News Portal of the RUB reports: How do you get rid of things you’ve learned, such as bad habits or fears? That’s what author, presenter and

The new podcast of the SFB 1280 has started, dive into the world of extinction learning together with host Rainer Holl and his exciting guests. Extinction learning – what is that supposed to be? Rainer Holl asks himself this question

The news portal of the RUB reports: The visual short-term memory seems more complex than expected, as the German-Chinese research team, which includes Rebekka Heinen and Prof. Dr. Nikolai Axmacher (A02, A03, F02) from the Bochum Neuropsychology Unit, was able

The news portal of the RUB reports: Nikolai Axmacher (A02, A03, F02) was awarded the ERC Consolidator Grant. In his ERC Grant, Nikolai Axmacher investigates the neural basis of spatial navigation in humans. Original article: >> Original article as PDF:

Congratulations! Tamas Spisak has been awarded the second promotion award of the Deutsche Schmerzgesellschaft, in particular for his work on the prediction of individual pain sensitivity by studying the resting state of the brain. Original article of the German Pain

The news portal of the RUB reports: “In view of the astonishing cognitive achievements that birds can accomplish, it was suspected that their brain is more organized than expected”, says Onur Güntürkün (A01, F02), head of the Biopsychology work unit

The news portal of the RUB reports: An international team of scientists, including Onur Güntürkün (A01, F02) from the RUB, proposes a new system for the classification of cell types of the cerebral cortex. The new system is necessary, they

The news portal of the RUB reports: Why the intestine and brain cannot be considered separately, the intestine is considered „the small brain“ – Siegrid Elsenbruch (A10, A12) wants to get to the bottom of this connection. For this purpose,

News from our cooperation partners – Laborpraxis reported: Cell-free DNA could be a marker with which physical and psychosocial stress can be distinguished. This theory is being pursued by the team from the Department of Genetic Psychology at the Ruhr

The News Portal of the RUB reports: Oliver Wolf (A09) gets honoured for his outstanding scientific work and his now part of the National Academy of Science Leopoldina. His work helped get a better understand of stress and its implications

Wow! Already the tenth teaching award for Dagmar Timmann-Braun (A05, F02), we congratulate on this success! The International Graduate Program Medical Neurosciences, located at Charité, Universitätsmedizin Berlin, has awarded a teaching prize for the 10th time this year to Dagmar

This year the SFB 1280 was the official partner of the IGSN conference and it was a great success! Twelve young researchers gave short presentations and poster sessions to give insights into their research fields and had the opportunity to

The News Portal of the RUB reports: Since January 13, 2020 Melanie Mark holds her professorship of Behavioral Neurobiology in the Department of General Zoology and Neurobiology at the Faculty of Biology and Biotechnology. Her research focuses on the cerebellum

It’s boiling in the cerebral Cortex Why do we bend our heads to the right when we kiss? Can women really park worse than men? And what determines the performance of our brain: genes, education and culture or even hormones?

The Adverse Effect of Hormonal Contraceptive Use on Exposure Therapy Benefit A new Research Paper about the negative psychological impact of hormonal contraceptive was published by a research team around Friederike Raeder (Postdoc A13), Franziska Heidemann (PhD student A13), Manfred

Learning and Unlearning in MRT The University of Duisburg-Essen reports on their news portal: The cerebellum controls movements and helps to control emotions. Otto Waalkes already knew this, as his sketch “Cerebellum to cerebrum: boys, don’t get excited, you’re going

Laura Lueckemann from the University of Duisburg-Essen is Post-Doc in the SFB 1280 subproject A18. The title of her research project is “Analysing extinction and memory up-dating of learned immune responses with fingolimod”. The objective of this study is to

Harald Engler takes over Professorship for Behavioural Immunobiology at the UDE The University of Duisburg-Essen (UDE) reports on their newsportal: Inflammations in our body influence behaviour and psyche. This is manifested, for example, by constant fatigue or increased loss of

“Advanced Methods in Brain MR-Imaging” starts at UDE A new junior research group dealing with the human brain is being set up at the Medical Faculty. One of the aims is to gain a better understanding of complex brain functions,

What is the capital city of Tajikistan? When did Einstein create his famous theory of relativity? And when did Goethe die? Some people seem to have an answer to every general knowledge question. Why? The Press Department of the Ruhr-Universität

SFB 1280 offers Care Assistance to Parents The mobile nursery is offered by the SFB 1280 and the Faculty of Psychology. It is aimed at employees and students who have to take their child to work at short notice in

The Press Department of the Ruhr-Universität Bochum reports on their news portal: Cognitive performance varies greatly between individuals and is significantly influenced by the structural and functional properties of the brain. In the past, neuroscientific research focused on fluid intelligence,

It is now a good two years since our network began its work as an SFB. The projects are running at full speed and it is a pleasure to observe this development. To keep the SFB agile, it was time

We are very happy to present to you the great press article in the new Stern magazine with our SFB spokesperson Onur Güntürkün, in which he talks about forgetting. Biopsychologist Onur Güntürkün explains why our brain is constantly erasing content

The Press Department of the Ruhr-Universität Bochum reports on their news portal: Humans and animals alike find their way around complex environments – even without a compass. Researchers from Bochum and Freiburg intend to find out how the brain manages

Roland Pusch explains how the brain overwrites old memories with new ones On June 26th, Collaborative Research Centre 874 hosted the last BRAIN CAFÉ before the summer break. The lecture series, which highlights neuroscientific research for non-scientists, focussed on the

Why research teams stress test subjects and what robots have to do with brains. Erhan took over the Twitter channel of the Ruhr University on 17 June 2019. For one day, he showed how he investigates the structures and networking

The Press Department of the Ruhr-Universität Bochum reports on their newsportal: Strobe light or acoustic stimulation can put the brain in the right rhythm. Patients could also benefit from this one day. During certain mental processes, such as remembering, nerve

Save the Date: Wednesday, 25th of September 2019, 3 pm @ IfADo lecture hall 3rd level, Ardeystraße 67, 44139 Dortmund, Germany The satellite symposium is co-organized by the SFB 1280 and the Graduate School IGSN and takes place within the

The Press Department of the Ruhr-Universität Bochum reports on their news portal: Both individual nerve cells and large neuronal assemblies appear to berelevant for spatial navigation. But what’s the relationship between both? Spatial navigation is an essential cognitive function, which

The SFB 1280 is part of a long-term strategy of the Ruhr-Universität Bochum (RUB) to establish itself as an international hub for Cognitive Neuroscience. As part of this developmental strategy, the rectorate of the RUB has decided to grant a

At the 10th International Annual Meeting of the Society for Research on the Cerebellum and Ataxias (SRCA) from 16-17 May 2019 in Sheffield, UK, Lana Inoue received the Masao Itō Award for Best Poster for presenting her poster “Can cerebellar-dependent

Remembering, Forgetting, Displacing A cinema evening by and for neuroscientists and film scholars Opening up new perspectives on one’s own research with art. The experiment of a moderated short film program @Endstation.kino (Bahnhof Langendreer, Bochum). With mini-lectures by Julia Eckel

Short-Movie Workshop for movie&neuro&interested scientists Tage Stunden Minuten Sekunden – 10.05.2019, 16-18.Uhr – Oh no, missed the show? At least you may peak what behind the courtain what was done AGENDA Dare to change perspective Short Movie Workshop “Rememberance, Forgetting,

The Press Department of the Ruhr-Universität Bochum reports on their newsportal: When the fear of spiders or heights gets so extreme that it interferes with everyday life, it makes sense to undergo cognitive-behavioural therapy. The approach works quite well, and

As a key component in fear avoidance models of pain chronification, avoidance fueled by fear of pain is a main obstacle to successful extinction. However, mechanisms underlying pain-related avoidance are uncharted territory, particularly in the context of visceral pain. We

In summer semester 2019, the lecture “Cognition and Brain” will be offered. Topics include emotions and attention, autobiographical and episodic memory, memory consolidation in sleep and reconsolidation. There will also be a series of lectures given by SFB 1280 members

The press announces the new publication of A07: “Design of an ultrafast G protein switch based on a mouse melanopsin variant”. The paper proposes a generally applicable to designing optogenetic tools. The primary goal of optogenetics is the light‐controlled noninvasive

“Planet Wissen” as guest of Onur Güntürkün (A01, F02) SFB 1280-Speaker Onur talks about the differences between humans and birds, women and men, left and right brain hemispheres – and much more. In “Planet Wissen” on 27 March 2019, he

Real forgetting is rarer than we think. Nikolai Axmacher Who doesn’t know this: You meet someone whose face you remember – but the name doesn’t come to your mind. A stupid situation, especially when the other person speaks to us

This new tool is a true two-in-one solution. In future, it might help to study a number of diseases. Using a novel optogenetic tool, researchers have successfully controlled, reproduced and visualised serotonin receptor signals in neural cells. To this end,

Julie Poirier researches at the Faculty of Rehabilitation Sciences of the Technical University Dortmund how children unlearn their knowledge and lets them “blast” chocolate out of a candy mine. Starting in March, the experiment will be used in kindergartens and

The German Research Foundation (DFG) promotes equality between men and women and family-friendly jobs. We have considered how we can express respect for our young parents for mastering the double burden of work and family life – at best with

The Press Department of the Ruhr-Universität Bochum reports on their news portal: When we try to remember something, we call up a scenario. It is constructed while we think back, say researchers. Did I turn off the coffee machine at

We are proud to announce that Lana Inoue, one of our PhD students from the sub-project A05, won one of the popular poster prizes on the Research Day of the Medical Faculty at the University of Duisburg-Essen. The event is

We are happy to present Katharina Schmidts‘ (Post-Doc A11) pilot study “Appetitive and aversive learning of pain-related fear in chronic low back pain patients” aiming at developing and transfering an experimental paradigm, which investigates learning mechanisms of stimuli predicting pain

The Sparkasse Essen awards six candidates with the Science Prize for their dissertations. Each of them receives 5,000 euros. The certificates are given to the winners by Vice-Rector Prof. Dagmar Führer-Sakel and Helmut Schiffer, Chairman of the Board of Management

The Press Department of the Ruhr-Universität Bochum reports on their newsportal: The mechanisms are much more complex than hitherto assumed. The left and the right hemispheres specialise in different tasks. However, it has not yet been fully understood how one

The Press Department of the University of Duisburg-Essen (UDE) reports on their newsportal: A new junior research group currently being set up at the Medical Faculty of the UDE is taking a closer look at the human brain.  One of

UMEA: Excellence in Medicine How do new medical findings get to the bedside? Through clinically researching physicians. At the Medical Faculty of the University of Duisburg-Essen (UDE), they will in future be supported by a new funding program so that

The Press Department of the Ruhr-Universität Bochum reports on their News portal: Brain oscillations that can be measured using depth electrodes provide insights into the human navigation system. The method may open up new approaches for early Alzheimer’s diagnosis. The

The Press Department of the Ruhr-Universität Bochum reports on their news Portal: Sleep helps to consolidate memories. Researchers from Bochum and Bonn have investigated how exactly this works. Even things that we forget are not immediately gone. Hui Zhang and

We are proud to present Giorgi Batsikadzes’ (Post-Doc A05) research proposal “Modulation of Extinction of Conditioned Fear by Non-invasive Cerebellar Electric Stimulation” tackling an issue that concerns the modulation of the learned fear by non-invasive brain stimulation. To date, only

At the third WissensNacht Ruhr on September 28, 2018, scientists will offer interesting lectures and discussions, hands-on activities, presentations, excursions, guided tours, and many other program items. A total of 16,000 visitors enjoy the varied programme. The SFB 1280 is

With ProKids, the RUB offers holiday care for children of university employees. The SFB 1280 supports the program with the help of our pigeons. RUB holiday fun at the BioPsy Lab How birds think – a day at the faculty

The Press Department of the Ruhr-Universität Bochum reports on their news portal: The consequences of long lasting depressive phases could be more far-reaching than previously thought. During a depressive phase, the brain’s ability to form new nerve cells decreases –

The press department of the Ruhr-Universität Bochum reports in the news portal: Stress helps to learn fear New insights into extinction learning could be useful for therapies. Stress can have positive effects on extinction learning by dissolving previously learned associations.

Planning together: Almost the entire team of project leaders and a big number of scientific staff gathered on what is probably the warmest day of May to clarify some arrangements and organisational issues for 2018. To the special joy of

Neuroforum Neuroforum is published both in print and online; the review articles are published in English only. In addition to these overview articles, both issues contain short reports on new methods and research developments, presentations of institutes, research groups and

Julie Poirier had just finished her master’s thesis when she already got the okay for her job as a doctoral student in subproject A16, and now she is not even registered at university in Bochum, but already has her first

Julian was excited whether his request would be granted. He has been interested in the idea behind this planned study for a long time now. Years ago he allready received a small grant from the Extinction Group for a precursor

The last meeting before the Young Scientist Symposium on April 23–24, 2018! Organized by the Graduate School IGSN, supported by the Research Training Group BIOME – and planned by the Young Scientists of the SFB 1280.

Pump Up Extinction! Valerie Kinner wonders if a work out can help the memory? As a PhD student in Project A09, Valerie has learned a lot about learning and forgetting under the influence of stress. Usually, their team uses gentle

The first congress of the SFB 1280 will take place in April 2018. As in the predecessor of this SFB, the FOR 1581 research group, the design is completely in the hands of the Young Scientists. What is new this

The Research Data Management working group meets at irregular intervals to optimise the flow of study data in SFB 1280 with the support of the Ruhr-Universität Data Management group closely cooperating with us.

A Sonderforschungsbereich is subject to certain rules and freedoms. Knowing exactly how to cope with everyday office work requires precise knowledge of the specifications – and a good deal of experience. The SFB Office has therefore invited all employees in

The first Nature Communications paper of SFB 1280 is published! We are very happy and congratulate the subproject A07. Title: “Orexin modulates behavioral fear expression through the locus coeruleus” >> To the publication

The Young Scientists who have just joined the SFB 1280 shall get to know Essen better  – what could be better suited than the Christmas market in the city centre. A nice, this time a little less topic-oriented meeting, where

With the launch of SFB 1280, the search for new, good staff members began. Now we are complete: A warm welcome to all new employees! With José Donoso in focus group F02 the team is complete. When the whole round

The first publication of the SFB 1280 has been published! Congratulations from the bottom of our hearts, A08. Title: “d-Cycloserine facilitates extinction learning and enhances extinction-related brain activation” >> Publication

Good news: On May 25, 2017, the DFG Senate Commission for SFBs decided to establish a brand new SFB in Bochum: The SFB1280 Extinction Learning was thus officially accepted! This is the first SFB that was born out of our