Roxana Zeraati is doing her doctoral research at the Graduate Training Center of Neuroscience at the University of Tübingen and at the International Max Planck Research School for the Mechanisms of Mental Function and Dysfunction. Her publication, which was awarded the Attempto Prize, deals with information processing in the brain over different time scales, which makes survival in a dynamic environment possible in the first place. For example, the perception of an immediate danger in the environment requires an immediate response, but sensory information must be integrated over a longer period of time in order to perform tasks such as decision-making and planning in the best possible way. Scientists assume that these different time scales of information processing are encoded in corresponding time scales of neural activity fluctuations in the brain.

In the award-winning study, Zeraati and her team investigated how the time scales of neural activity fluctuations correspond to the processing of visual information when attention is focused on a specific point in space. To this end, they used data obtained in experimental laboratories at Stanford University and Newcastle University in experiments with monkeys. They were given tasks that directed their attention in space while their brain activity was recorded. When analyzing the data, Zeraati and her colleagues found that long and short time scales are found simultaneously in the neural dynamics, but only the long time scales are adapted to the attentional state of the monkeys. When the monkeys focused their attention on certain visual stimuli, the long time scales became longer, which correlated with a shorter reaction time of the monkeys.

In order to understand the mechanisms of such adaptations, the research team developed computer models that depict various aspects of the cellular and network properties of the brain. The researchers found that long timescales of neural activity are shaped by how neurons are connected and how they interact. When the interactions are strengthened, the brain can process information over long time scales. This seems to be relevant for utilizing visual information during the attention span. The work shows how the integration of experiments and computer models in neuroscience helps to better understand the connection between brain structures, brain functions and flexible behavior.