The new research and husbandry building PriCaB, short for Primate Cognition and Behavior, uniquely combines aspects of animal husbandry and animal research with non-human primates. In particular, the animals' cognition abilities can be explored using the equipment for playful interaction without the animals having to leave their social group. A camera system combined with novel analysis and recognition programs will also be used to record the animals' behavior and health status individually and around the clock. Thus, the new building at the German Primate Center - Leibniz Institute for Primate Research (DPZ) also enables significant contributions to safeguarding and researching animal welfare in non-human primates.

For the first time, neuroscientists from Charité – Universitätsmedizin Berlin and the Max Planck Institute for Biological Intelligence (currently in the process of being established) have revealed the precise connections between sensory neurons inside the retina and the superior colliculus, a structure in the midbrain. Neuropixels probes are a relatively recent development, representing the next generation of electrodes. Densely packed with recording points, Neuropixels probes are used to record the activity of nerve cells, and have facilitated these recent insights into neuronal circuits. Writing in Nature Communications*, the researchers describe a fundamental principle which is common to the visual systems of mammals and birds.

A molecular atlas of an Australian dragon’s brain sheds new light on over 300 million years of brain evolution

What we perceive might sometimes reflect the outcome of a value-based decision-making process, a new analysis of the literature suggests.

Scientists gain insights on how deprivation-induced synaptic changes affect excitatory and inhibitory firing rates in the sensory cortex.

During development, lack of sensory experience elicits powerful plasticity mechanisms that alter brain circuitry. Many inhibitory neuron subtypes are known to influence circuit dynamics, however, how they interact with plasticity is not yet fully understood. Scientists at the Max Planck Institute for Brain Research in Frankfurt have investigated how synaptic plasticity in rodents, who were deprived of vision in one eye, affects network activity in a circuit model of the sensory cortex. Their findings point to the role of different inhibitory interneuron subtypes to explain the temporal pattern of firing rate change of excitatory and inhibitory neurons during sensory deprivation.

Cluster speaker Philipp Berens has received a Starting Grant from the European Research Council (ERC) for his "NextMechMod" project. The project, which aims to develop new models and algorithms for studying amacrine cells, particular nerve cells in the retina of the eye, will be funded with a total of around 1.5 million euros over a period of five years. With the Starting Grants, the ERC provides outstanding young scientists with additional funding in their research careers.

After a competitive selection process, our PhD program will be funded with 300,000 € for three years by the Berlin Einstein Foundation as Einstein Foundation Doctoral Program.

We are very bad at recalling objects at our gaze direction from short-term memory - even though this is the area we see most sharply, report brain researchers from Tübingen led by Professor Ziad Hafed.

The DFG (German Research Foundation) is funding the research group led by Professor Dr. Veronica Egger of the University of Regensburg in the research project "Modulation of Olfaction: How Recurrent Circuits Determine State-Dependent Behavior" with about 4.2 million euros.

Funding for the research unit approved for a further three years