The core of the SFB 1280

The work groups of the SFB 1280 approach their questions and studies from very different perspectives. In the Collaborative Research Centre neural, behavioural, educative, ontogenetic and clinical mechanisms of extinction learning in different species including humans are combined. It would be difficult to put the projects into categories regarding topic. Rather they combine the systematic and technical diversity of the approaches with high level of unity on structural, experimental and conceptual levels. This means, for example, that all neurobiological and clinical projects focus on a number of brain areas that constitute the extinction network. These projects all use similar testing methods in order to optimise the exchange of data and knowledge. All this acquired data from the SFB 1280 subprojects will be integrated in the Focus Groups for learning dynamics and imaging for new, superordinate analyses.
All research aims to test a set of central hypotheses for the mechanisms of extinction learning with each individual project testing several of these hypotheses. With this strategy the SFB 1280 wants to analyse the similar and distinct mechanisms extinction learning for different systems and organisms. Its scientists are convinced that this is a promising approach for translational insights between fundamental research and clinical as well as social sciences.