The human brain’s ability to filter relevant information from the vast amount of data it continuously receives is known as attention. Researchers at BIFOLD at the Technical University of Berlin, in close collaboration with scientists from the Kording Lab at the University of Pennsylvania, have developed a brain-inspired AI model of visual attention. What is particularly remarkable is that the model reproduces numerous well-established behavioral and perceptual phenomena from psychology and neurophysiology without these effects having been explicitly programmed into it. This not only advances our understanding of human visual perception but also provides a new perspective and framework for AI researchers. The joint study has now been published in the journal Nature Communications.

Beneath the tropical trees of southern Mexico, enormous shoals of sulphur mollies blanket the water surface of toxic sulphur springs, where survival depends on collective defence against relentless attacks from predatory birds. The tiny fish survive attacks of birds through creating spectacular collective waves. But new research now shows that their avian predators are adapting too, changing where they attack to avoid triggering the fish’s powerful group defence. The fish, in turn, appear to fight back with a surprising form of collective “memory.” The study by the Cluster of Excellence “Science of Intelligence” (SCIoI) in collaboration with the Leibniz Institute of Freshwater Ecology and Inland Fisheries (IGB) was published today in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B.

How do neighboring neurons in the cerebral cortex communicate with one another during movement? This is the question that Dr. Yangfan Peng is now investigating in his Emmy Noether junior research group at Charité – Universitätsmedizin Berlin. His goal is to establish fundamental structure–function principles of neuronal networks in order to deepen our understanding of motor control. The German Research Foundation (DFG) is initially funding the project for three years with € 1.25 million and, following a successful interim evaluation, has indicated the possibility of an additional three-year funding period of approximately 945,000 €.

How, when, and where do we remember events we have truly experienced? Researchers in philosophy and neuroscience in Bochum are working together to answer this question.

Following an adverse event, some people develop a stress-related disorder, while others appear to be more resilient. A joint study by the Leibniz Institute for Resilience Research (LIR), University Medicine Halle, and the University Hospital Münster has found that this so-called resilience is not a passive state but is instead subject to active changes in the brain. For the first time, tests on humans and mice have demonstrated that the visual cortex plays a special role in this, revealing a connection between resilience and the improved processing of visual information. It also appears that resilience can be trained. The findings were published in the Science Partner Journal Research.

• Two-year grant to study how humans adapt their decision-making to changing environments.
• Moving beyond artificial experiments to capture more realistic behavior using gamified tasks.
• Potential relevance for disrupted or defective decision-making

Why do some people develop Parkinson’s disease while others remain healthy despite similar circumstances? A new joint research project by the University Hospital Bonn (UKB) and the University of Bonn, in collaboration with the University of Augsburg, is exploring this question using an unconventional approach: the so-called exposome — that is, the totality of all environmental factors to which a person is exposed over the course of their life, ranging from diet and environmental chemicals to microplastics. The “ExPres-RBD” project is funded by the Walter and Ilse Rose Foundation with over 400,000 euros and is the first to systematically investigate how environmental factors and biological processes in the body interact and may contribute to the development of Parkinson’s disease.

Persons under stress may have a harder time spatially orienting themselves. Researchers in Bochum have discovered why.

Researchers at the Science of Intelligence (SCIoI) Cluster of Excellence are investigating how the brain produces a stable image despite the jerky movements of our eyes. To do this, they use afterimages as an experimental tool.

Neural networks are Alexander van Meegen’s main area of interest. He has been conducting research in this field as a junior professor at RWTH Aachen University since February.