Unlocking the Full Cognitive Potential of the Brain
How can the brain’s cognitive potential be mobilized, enhanced and maintained? An interdisciplinary team from the fields of medicine, biology, biochemistry, psychology, physics, and pharmacology is investigating these questions in the DFG-funded Collaborative Research Center (CRC) 1436 “Neural Resources of Cognition”.
We are thrilled to share with you that “Pint of Science” is coming…
Research Area A
What are the molecular and synaptic
foundations for cognitive enhancement?
Research Area B
How does cognitive training change
the neural circuitry of the brain?
Research Area C
Are changes in the neural networks of the brain
related to the mobilization of cognitive resources?
News from the neurosciences of the CRC
“Pint of Science” is coming to Magdeburg for the very first time!
We are thrilled to share with you that “Pint of Science” is coming…
Lecture with Dr. Ralph Weidner
On April, 23th, 2024, the Institute of Psychology invites to a lecture…
Highlights from the IRTG Brainhack Magdeburg 2024
We are glad to share with you the highlights from the recent…
Parthiban Saravanakumar won the 2. UMMD Science Slam 2024!
We are happy to inform you that Parthiban Saravanakumar, IRTG doctoral student,…
B01 is the next host for the Open Lab Day
The CRC 1436 subproject B01 “Medial Temporal Lobe and Prefrontal cortex connectivity…
Cognitive Disorders: 1st International Symposium in Tbilisi
Organized by Tamar Macharadze We are delighted to announce that the 1st…
Davide Ciliberti´s lecture on March 25th
The CRC 1436 and the Institute of Cognitive Neurology and Dementia Research is delighted…
IKND Lab Meeting with Marta Bianciardi
We would like to invite you to one of our special LC…
25th April: TeaTalk with Thomas Wolbers
The second TeachingTalk of 2024 is coming closer! The next lecture will be given by Thomas Wolbers: Date: 25th of…
External Speaker Series with Dr. Davide Ciliberti
The Institute of Cognitive Neurology and Dementia Research is delighted to announce the lecture…
Our research focus
Is it possible to increase the performance of memory?
What is the hidden potential of the brain and what are its limits?
How can the brain’s cognitive potential be mobilized and enhanced?
The architecture of our brain provides biological limits for the performance of memory, attention, and our capacity for learning; this is evident on both the micro and macro scale. However, there is large variability within these limits and individual cognitive abilities can be improved through directed training. The goal of our Collaborative Research Center (CRC) is to uncover the performance limits of the human brain and to explore methodological approaches for improving this performance. We aim to understand which neurobiological principles limit cognitive resources and how these resources can be fully accessed or even enhanced. Further, we will identify new ways to preserve neural resources across the lifespan with targeted interventions.
More than 40 scientists in 22 individual projects are currently working in our CRC towards this exciting neuroscientific topic, which is also highly relevant in our current society.
Using the latest neuroscientific technologies and innovative methods, human and animal experimental studies will examine individual variability and transferable improvement in cognitive function. We place a specific focus on how performance improvements in one task can be transferred to other tasks and when task performance comes at the expense of other abilities. We also ask, why do cognitive abilities decline with age? And what are the tremendous resources of “super-agers”? Further, we are investigating how molecular and biochemical processes affect cognitive performance, for instance, with the deposition of tau and amyloid in the brain, or those that occur with sleep deprivation or other environmental influences. This project is funded by the German Research Foundation (DFG) and encompasses both the Otto von Guericke University Magdeburg and the Leibniz Institute of Neurobiology, as well as the German Center for Neurodegenerative Diseases (DZNE) Magdeburg site, Freie Universität Berlin, Charitè Universitätsmedizin Berlin, Forschungszentrum Jülich, and the universities of Düsseldorf, Heidelberg, and Göttingen.
Co-Spokesperson Dr. Michael Kreutz & Spokesperson Prof. Dr. med. Emrah Düzel
Publications of the CRC
A septal to ventral tegmental area circuit drives exploratory behaviour
Mocellin P, Barnstedt O,Luxem K, Kaneko H, Karpova A, Henschke J, Dalügge D, Fuhrmann F, Pakan JMP, Kreutz MR, MikulovicS, and Remy S Neuron (2024)
The GluN2C/D-specific positive allosteric modulator CIQ rescues delay-induced working memory deficits in mice
Dembeck M, Dieterich DC & Fendt M Behav Brain Res (2024)
Holistic bursting cells store long-term memory in auditory cortex
Li R, Huang J, Li L, Zhao Z, Liang S, Liang S, Wang M, Liao X, Lyu J, Zhou Z, Wang S, Jin W, Chen H, Holder D, Liu H,…
Alpha-frequency feedback to early visual cortex orchestrates coherent natural vision
Chen L, Cichy RM*, Kaiser D* Sci Adv (2023)
Linking epileptic phenotypes and neural extracellular matrix remodeling signatures in mouse models of epilepsy
Armand Blondiaux, Shaobo Jia, Anil Annamneedi, Gürsel Çalışkan, Jana Nebel, Carolina Montenegro-Venegas, Robert C Wykes, Anna Fejtova, Matthew C Walker, Oliver Stork, Eckart D Gundelfinger, Alexander Dityatev, Constanze I Seidenbecher…
Chaperone-mediated autophagy in neuronal dendrites utilizes activity-dependent lysosomal exocytosis for protein disposal
Grochowska KM, Sperveslage M, Raman R, Failla AV, Głów D, Schulze C, Laprell L, Fehse B, Kreutz MR Cell Rep (2023)
Inhibitory temporo-parietal effective connectivity is associated with explicit memory performance in older adults
Schott BH, Soch J, Kizilirmak JM, Schütze H, Assmann A, Maass A, Ziegler G, Sauvage M, Richter A iScience (2023)
Interplay of physical and cognitive performance using hierarchical continuous-time dynamic modelling and a dual-task training regime in AD patients
Schwarck S, Voelkle MC, Becke A, Busse N, Glanz W, Düzel E, Ziegler G medRxiv (2023)
Nasal administration of orexin A partially rescues dizocilpine-induced cognitive impairments in female C57BL/6J mice
Durairaja A, Pandey S, Kahl E & Fendt M Behav Brain Res (2023)
Integration of nuclear Ca2+ transients and subnuclear protein shuttling provides a novel mechanism for the regulation of CREB-dependent gene expression
Karpova A, Samer S, Turacak R, Yuanxiang P, Kreutz MR. Cell Mol Life Sci (2023)
Golgi satellites are essential for polysialylation of NCAM and expression of LTP at distal synapses
Andres-Alonso M, Borgmeyer M, Mirzapourdelavar H, Lormann J, Klein K, Schweizer M, Hoffmeister-Ullerich S, Oelschlegel AM, Dityatev A, Kreutz MR Cell Rep (2023)
Vessel distance mapping: A novel methodology for assessing vascular-induced cognitive resilience
Berta Garcia-Garcia, Hendrik Mattern, Niklas Vockert,, Renat Yakupov, Frank Schreiber, Marco Spallazzi, Valentina Perosa, Aiden Haghikia, Oliver Speck, Emrah Düzel, Anne Maass, Stefanie Schreiber Neuroimage (2023)
Sex differences in anxiety and threat avoidance in GAD65 knock-out mice
Ulrich M, Pollali E, Çalışkan G, Stork O, Albrecht A. Neurobiol Dis (2023)
Inferring Salient Motifs during Learning Experiments
Jamaludeen N, Kuhn F, Brechmann A, Fuhrmann F, Remy S and Spiliopoulou M Proceedings – IEEE Symposium on Computer-Based Medical Systems (2023)
Protein transport from pre- and postsynapse to the nucleus: Mechanisms and functional implications
Maria Andres-Alonso, Katarzyna M Grochowska, Eckart D Gundelfinger, Anna Karpova, Michael R Kreutz Mol Cell Neurosci (2023)
Arterial hypertension and beta-amyloid accumulation have spatially overlapping effects on posterior white matter hyperintensity volume: a cross-sectional study
Jose Bernal, Stefanie Schreiber, Inga Menze, Anna Ostendorf, Malte Pfister, Jonas Geisendörfer, Aditya Nemali, Anne Maass, Renat Yakupov, Oliver Peters, Lukas Preis, Luisa Schneider, Ana Lucia Herrera, Josef Priller, Eike Jakob Spruth, Slawek Altenstein, Anja Schneider, Klaus Fliessbach, Jens Wiltfang, Björn H Schott, Ayda Rostamzadeh, Wenzel Glanz, Katharina Buerger, Daniel Janowitz, Michael…
Learning how network structure shapes decision-making for bio-inspired computing
Michael Schirner, Gustavo Deco, Petra Ritter Nat Commun (2023)
Rescue of synaptic and cognitive functions in polysialic acid-deficient mice and dementia models by short polysialic acid fragments
Hristo Varbanov , Shaobo Jia , Gaga Kochlamazashvili , Subhrajit Bhattacharya , Manal Ali Buabeid , Mohamed El Tabbal , Hussam Hayani , Stoyan Stoyanov , Weilun Sun , Hauke…
One-step purification of tag free and soluble lamin B1 from an E. coli bacterial expression system
Raman R, Karpova A, Kreutz MR Protein Expr Purif (2022)
Cell-selective proteomics segregates pancreatic cancer subtypes by extracellular proteins in tumors and circulation
DSwietlik JJ, Bärthel S, Falcomatà C, Fink D, Sinha A, Cheng J, Ebner S, Landgraf P, Dieterich DC, Daub H, Saur D & Meissner F Nat Commun (2023)
A shift in the mechanisms controlling hippocampal engram formation during brain maturation?
Adam I Ramsaran, Ying Wang, Ali Golbabaei, Stepan Aleshin, Mitchell L de Snoo, Bi-Ru Amy Yeung, Asim J Rashid, Ankit Awasthi, Jocelyn Lau, Lina M Tran, Sangyoon Y Ko, Andrin Abegg, Lana Chunan Duan, Cory McKenzie, Julia Gallucci, Moriam Ahmed, Rahul Kaushik, Alexander Dityatev,…
Plasma concentrations of anti-inflammatory cytokine TGF-β are associated with hippocampal structure related to explicit memory performance in older adults
M Raschick, A Richter, L Fischer, L Knopf, A Schult, R Yakupov, G Behnisch, K Guttek, E Düzel, I R Dunay, C I Seidenbecher, B Schraven, D Reinhold, B H…
Cognitive flexibility in mice: effects of puberty and role of NMDA receptor subunits
Seifried L, Soleimanpour E, Dieterich DC & Fendt M Cells (2023)
The relationship between resting-state amplitude fluctuations and memory-related deactivations of the default mode network in young and older adults
Jasmin M Kizilirmak, Joram Soch, Hartmut Schütze, Emrah Düzel, Hannah Feldhoff, Larissa Fischer, Lea Knopf, Anne Maass, Matthias Raschick, Annika Schult, Renat Yakupov, Anni Richter, Björn H Schott Hum Brain…
Repurposing drugs against Alzheimer’s disease: can the anti-multiple sclerosis drug fingolimod (FTY720) effectively tackle inflammation processes in AD?
Volkmar Leßmann, Georgia-Ioanna Kartalou, Thomas Endres, Marc Pawlitzki, Kurt Gottmann J Neural Transm (2023)
Single-value scores of memory-related brain activity reflect dissociable neuropsychological and anatomical signatures of neurocognitive aging
Richter A, Soch J, Kizilirmak JM, Fischer L, Schütze H, Assmann A, Behnisch G, Feldhoff H, Knopf L, Raschick M, Schult A, Seidenbecher CI, Yakupov R, Düzel E, Schott BH…
Monitoring regional astrocyte diversity by cell type-specific proteomic labeling in vivo
Prabhakar P, Pielot R, Landgraf P, Wissing J, Bayrhammer A, van Ham M, Gundelfinger ED, Jänsch L, Dieterich DC & Müller A Glia (2023)
Extracellular Matrix Changes in Subcellular Brain Fractions and Cerebrospinal Fluid of Alzheimer’s Disease Patients
Lukas Höhn, Wilhelm Hußler, Anni Richter, Karl-Heinz Smalla, Anna-Maria Birkl-Toeglhofer, Christoph Birkl, Stefan Vielhaber, Stefan L Leber, Eckart D Gundelfinger, Johannes Haybaeck, Stefanie Schreiber, Constanze I Seidenbecher Int J Mol…
A cortical zoom-in operation underlies covert shifts of visual spatial attention
Mandy V Bartsch, Christian Merkel, Hendrik Strumpf, Mircea A Schoenfeld, John K Tsotsos, Jens-Max Hopf Sci Adv (2023)
A hippocampus-accumbens code guides goal-directed appetitive behavior
Barnstedt O, Mocellin P, Remy S BioRxiv (2023)
Brain reserve contributes to distinguishing preclinical Alzheimer’s stages 1 and 2.
Yildirim, Z., Delen, F., Berron, D., Baumeister, H., Ziegler, G., Schutze, H., Glanz, W., Dobisch, L., Peters, O., Freiesleben, S. D., Schneider, L. S., Priller, J., Spruth, E. J., Schneider,…
Heparan Sulfates Regulate Axonal Excitability and Context Generalization through Ca2+/Calmodulin-Dependent Protein Kinase II
I. Song, T. Kuznetsova, D. Baidoe-Ansah, H. Mirzapourdelavar , O. Senkov, H. Hayani, A. Mironov, R. Kaushik, M. Druzin, S. Johansson, A. Dityatev Cells (2023)
Lifelong experiences as a proxy of cognitive reserve moderate the association between connectivity and cognition in Alzheimer’s disease
Ersin Ersoezlue, Boris-Stephan Rauchmann, Thomas Schneider-Axmann, Michael Wagner, Tommaso Ballarini, Maia Tato, Julia Utecht, Carolin Kurz, Boris Papazov, Selim Guersel, Lena Burow, Gabriele Koller, Sophia Stöcklein, Daniel Keeser, Claudia Bartels, Frederic Brosseron, Katharina Buerger, Arda C Cetindag, Peter Dechent, Laura Dobisch, Michael Ewers0, Klaus Fliessbach, Ingo Frommann, John D Haynes, Michael T Heneka, Daniel Janowitz0, Ingo…
Jacob-induced transcriptional inactivation of CREB promotes Aβ-induced synapse loss in Alzheimer’s disease
Grochowska KM, Gomes GM, Raman R, Kaushik R, Sosulina L, Kaneko H, Oelschlegel AM, Yuanxiang P, Reyes-Resina I, Bayraktar G, Samer S, Spilker C, Woo MS, Morawski M, Goldschmidt J,…
A Jacob/nsmf gene knockout does not protect against acute hypoxia- and NMDA-induced excitotoxic cell death
Guilherme M Gomes, Julia Bär, Anna Karpova, Michael R Kreutz Mol Brain (2023)
Modelling the contributions to hyperexcitability in a mouse model of Alzheimer’s disease
Mittag M, Mediavilla L, Remy S, Cuntz H, Jedlicka P Journal of Physiology (2023)
Entering into a self-regulated learning mode prevents detrimental effects of feedback removal on memory
Peter Vavra, Leo Sokolovič, Emanuele Porcu, Pablo Ripollés, Antoni Rodriguez-Fornells, Toemme Noesselt NPJ Sci Learn (2023)
Jacob-induced transcriptional inactivation of CREB promotes Aβ-induced synapse loss in Alzheimer’s disease
K. M Grochowska, G. M Gomes, R. Raman, R. Kaushik, L. Sosulina, H. Kaneko, A. M Oelschlegel, P. Yuanxiang, I. Reyes-Resina, G. Bayraktar, S. Samer, C. Spilker, M. S Woo,…
Laminar activation pattern of category-selective regions during imagery and perception
Carricarte T., Iamshchinina P., Trampel R., Chaimow D., Lorenz R., Weiskopf N., Cichy R.M J Vis (2023)
Can moving in a redundant workspace accelerate motor adaptation?
Jahangir Esfandiari, Seyedsina Razavizadeh, Max-Philipp Stenner Journal of Neurophysiology (2022)
Identifying behavioral structure from deep variational embeddings of animal motion
Luxem K, Mocellin P, Fuhrmann F, Kürsch J, Miller SR, Palop JJ, Remy S*, Bauer P*. Communications Biology (2022)
Structural and Functional MRI Data Differentially Predict Chronological Age and Behavioral Memory Performance
Soch J, Richter A, Kizilirmak JM, Schütze H, Feldhoff H, Fischer L, Knopf L, Raschick M, Schult A, Düzel E, Schott BH eNeuro (2022)
Seeing and extrapolating motion trajectories share common informative activation patterns in primary visual cortex
Camila Silveira Agostino, Christian Merkel, Felix Ball, Peter Vavra, Hermann Hinrichs, Toemme Noesselt Hum Brain Mapp (2022)
Transversal functional connectivity and scene-specific processing in the human entorhinal-hippocampal circuitry
Grande, X., Sauvage, M. M., Becke, A., Duzel, E., & Berron, D Elife (2022)
Visual spatial attention shifts decoded from the electroencephalogram enable sending of binary messages
Reichert C, Dürschmid S, Sweeney-Reed CM, Hinrichs H IEEE Workshop on Complexity in Engineering (2022)
Choosing memory retrieval strategies: A critical role for inhibition in the dentate gyrus – ScienceDirect
Anne Albrecht, Iris Müller, Aliće Weiglein, Evangelia Pollali, Gürsel Çalışkan, Oliver Stork Neurobiology of Stress (2022)
In vivo tractography of human locus coeruleus—relation to 7T resting state fMRI, psychological measures and single subject validity
Thomas Liebe, Jörn Kaufmann, Dorothea Hämmerer, Matthew Betts, Martin Walter Molecular Psychiatry (2022)
Distinct interacting cortical networks for stimulus-response and repetition-suppression
Eckert D, Reichert C, Bien CG, Heinze H-J, Knight RT, Deouell LY, Dürschmid S Communications Biology (2022)
Working memory and active sampling of the environment: Medial temporal contributions
Stefan Pollmann, Werner X. Schneider Handbook of Clinical Neurology (2022)
Discriminating Free Hand Movements Using Support Vector Machine and Recurrent Neural Network Algorithms
Christoph Reichert, Lisa Klemm, Raghava Vinaykanth Mushunuri, Avinash Kalyani, Stefanie Schreiber, Esther Kühn, Elena Azañón Sensors (2022)
D-cycloserine rescues scopolamine-induced deficits in cognitive flexibility in rats measured by the attentional set-shifting task
Md. Abu Bokor Siddik, Markus Fendt Behavioral Brain Research (2022)
Functional electrical stimulation driven by a brain–computer interface in acute and subacute stroke patients impacts beta power and long-range temporal correlation
Krueger J, Krauth R, Reichert C, Perdikis S, Vogt S, Huchtemann T, Dürschmid S, Sickert A, Lamprecht J, Huremovic A, Goertler M, Nasuto SJ, Knight RT, Hinrichs H, Heinze H-J,…
Probing the Skin-Brain Axis: New Vistas Using Mouse Models
Aliće Weiglein, Evelyn Gaffal, Anne Albrecht Int J Mol Sci (2022)
Amyloid pathology but not APOE ε4 status is permissive for tau-related hippocampal dysfunction
Emrah Düzel, Gabriel Ziegler, David Berron, Anne Maass, Hartmut Schütze, Arturo Cardenas-Blanco, Wenzel Glanz, Coraline Metzger, Laura Dobisch, Martin Reuter, Annika Spottke, Frederic Brosseron, Klaus Fliessbach, Michael T Heneka, Christoph…
Reaching the Goal: Superior Navigators in Late Adulthood Provide A Novel Perspective into Successful Cognitive Aging
Ruojing Zhou, Tuğçe Belge, Thomas Wolbers TOPICS (2022)
Unimanual sensorimotor learning-A simultaneous EEG-fMRI aging study
Sabrina Chettouf, Paul Triebkorn, Andreas Daffertshofer, Petra Ritter Hum Brain Mapp (2022)
Intracerebroventricular infusion of the selective orexin 1 receptor antagonist SB-334867 impairs cognitive flexibility in a sex-dependent manner
Archana Durairaja, Ceylan-Scarlett Steinecke, Markus Fendt Behavioral Brain Research (2022)
Somatosensory omissions reveal action-related predictive processing
Dercksen, T., Widmann, A., Noesselt, T. & Wetzel, N. PsyArXiv (2022)
BCAN and NCAN Cleavage Products in the Cerebrospinal Fluid – Differential Occurrence in ALS, Epilepsy and Small Vessel Disease
Hußler W, Höhn L, Stolz C, Vielhaber S, Garz C, Schmitt FC, Gundelfinger ED, Schreiber S, Seidenbecher CI Front Cell Neurosci (2022)
The needs of a synapse-How local organelles serve synaptic proteostasis
Katarzyna M Grochowska, Maria Andres-Alonso, Anna Karpova, Michael R Kreutz EMBO J (2022)