Description
Speakers: Elia Formisano, Keith Doelling
Chairs: ...
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Joachim Groß20/04/2026, 10:45Talk
Dynamic brain activity emerges from the interplay of multiple factors: the structural and neurochemical scaffolds that constrain regional dynamics, the rhythmic influences of bodily signals such as respiration, and the gradual reorganization of these processes across the human lifespan. In this talk, I will discuss the effect of these different factors as modulations of body-brain state...
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Monika Schönauer20/04/2026, 11:30Talk
New memories are initially labile and have to be consolidated into stable long-term representations. Current theories assume that this is supported by a shift in the neural substrate that supports the memory, away from rapidly plastic hippocampal networks towards more stable representations in the neocortex. Rehearsal, i.e., repeated activation of the neural circuits that store a memory, is...
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Christopher Summerfield20/04/2026, 13:30Talk
Human learning progresses in stages. Humans benefit from training curricula. I will discuss the reasons for these phenomena, using neural networks trained with gradient descent as a model system. I will show that humans and neural network learning often unfolds in strikingly similar ways, following a similar path, and with similar sensitivity to structured curricula. I will discuss...
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Martina Callaghan20/04/2026, 16:15Talk
Ultra-high-field (7T) MRI offers unprecedented sensitivity and spatial specificity, enabling access to functional and structural information across cortical depths in the living human brain. Depth-resolved functional MRI opens new avenues for testing and discriminating between competing models of human cognition by linking neural computations to layer-specific patterns of activity. In...
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Mariya Toneva20/04/2026, 17:00Talk
Language is one of the richest and most complex human cognitive capacities. Yet, we lack a model organism to study its underlying neural mechanisms: unlike other important cognitive capacities, such as vision or memory, language does not have a clear counterpart in non-human animals, leaving a gap in our ability to develop and test mechanistic hypotheses. In recent years, large language models...
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Marcello Massimini21/04/2026, 09:00Talk
Nearly a century ago, William Grey Walter reported that focal brain lesions are consistently associated with the appearance of EEG slow waves during wakefulness. Although robust, this observation was largely sidelined with the rise of CT and MRI. Over the past five years, convergent evidence from different labs has revived this view, showing that in awake stroke patients, TMS–EEG recordings...
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Charlotte Stagg21/04/2026, 09:45Talk
Recent advances in neuromodulation combined with neuroimaging enable unprecedented insights into the mechanisms supporting human motor control and recovery after stroke. In this talk I will show how tDCS–MRI reveals targeted cortical inhibition can restore large-scale network connectivity after stroke, and how concurrent tACS–MRI links neurochemical states and oscillatory dynamics to...
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Martijn van den Heuvel21/04/2026, 10:30Talk
The human brain functions as a highly efficient communication network operating across multiple scales. Neurons exchange information locally through synapses, while distributed brain systems are connected by long-range pathways. Together, these connections form the connectome, the structural foundation for brain communication. Network neuroscience applies graph theory to reveal how patterns of...
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Elia Formisano21/04/2026, 12:15Talk
The ability to recognize and interpret sounds is essential for both humans and increasingly so for machines. From the melodic chirping of birds to the urgent wails of passing emergency vehicles, sound perception allows us to comprehend events and identify objects, even in darkness or behind barriers. This presentation describes interdisciplinary research across cognitive psychology,...
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Keith Doelling21/04/2026, 13:00Talk
Acoustic regularities in human-generated sounds, such as speech and music, can be leveraged to improve neural processing and comprehension. Over the past several decades, a longstanding debate has centered on whether neural oscillations, as measured with M/EEG, actively extract this temporal information to enhance processing, or whether these neural signals merely reflect temporal structure...
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Birte ForstmannTalk
The subcortex has paramount importance for cognitive processes and is affected early in practically all neurodegenerative diseases. Yet, in the past decades, the human neurosciences have been dominated by a cortico-centric viewpoint, while the human subcortex, the Deep Brain, has remained relatively uncharted territory. I will introduce a novel Bayesian joint modeling of brain and behavior...
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