With the Brains for Brains Award, the Bernstein Network Computational Neuroscience honors young scientists who pursue a career in computational neuroscience and whose publication portfolio reveals outstanding merit at a very early stage of their careers. This year’s Brains for Brains Award, endowed with € 2000, goes to Penghao Qian from China. It enables Qian to visit the Bernstein Conference and exclusive laboratories in the field of computational neuroscience in Germany. The award will be presented at the Bernstein Conference on October 2, 2024, in Frankfurt am Main.

A group of 14 scientists, the majority of whom work or have worked at the Käte Hamburger Kolleg: Cultures of Research (c:o/re) at RWTH Aachen University, has published an article on the lack of attention paid to software in "Nature Computational Science".

Release 3.1 of the Julich Brain Atlas has been published and can be freely downloaded through the EBRAINS research infrastructure. The updated brain atlas now gives online access to 52 new probability maps of cortical and subcortical structures in a three-dimensional reference space. Programming interfaces for the computational neurosciences simplify the integration of the data into brain models.

Procrastination, the deliberate but detrimental deferring of tasks, has many forms. Sahiti Chebolu of the Max Planck Institute for Biological Cybernetics uses a precise mathematical framework to understand its different patterns and their underlying reasons. Her insights could help tailor individual strategies to tackle the issue.

The cortex allows us humans to think, perceive our environment and act purposefully. Certain patterns of brain activity enable this; they emerge early in brain development through dynamic processes of self-organisation. This is shown by researchers from the University of Minnesota (UoM) and the Frankfurt Institute for Advanced Studies (FIAS) in a study published in Nature Communications. They found that the networks of the young cortex convert unstructured input into highly organised activity patterns. The organisation of these patterns is therefore not determined externally (e.g. by sensory input), but arises through interaction between the nerve cells and follows dynamic laws.

Researchers at the Berlin Institute of Health at Charité (BIH) have used brain simulations to develop a theory on the formation of traveling waves of activity. These waves influence cognitive processes in the human brain such as learning or remembering. Understanding traveling waves of activity can support in treating patients with cognitive disorders.

The brain modulates visual signals according to internal states, as a new study by LMU neuroscientist Laura Busse reveals.

Knowledge of spatial reference systems is necessary for the control of neuroprostheses.

Contrary to previous assumptions, nerve cells in the human neocortex are wired differently than in mice. Those are the findings of a new study conducted by Charité – Universitätsmedizin Berlin and published in the journal Science. The study found that human neurons communicate in one direction, while in mice, signals tend to flow in loops. This increases the efficiency and capacity of the human brain to process information. These discoveries could further the development of artificial neural networks.

Now in spring, some of us have a particular craving for ice cream. Picture this: You want to take a walk to your favourite ice cream parlour for the first time after winter. You can probably remember how to get there. How does our brain guide us to such rewarding places? In a study recently published in the journal Nature Communications, researchers from the Leibniz Institute of Neurobiology (LIN) in Magdeburg used state-of-the-art methods to answer this question. They discovered that our brain uses a special code to guide us to places that promise rewards.