Post-doctoral position in Cognitive Computational Neuroscience at the Adaptive Brain Lab. The role involves combining high field brain imaging (7T fMRI, MR Spectroscopy), electrophysiology (EEG), computational modelling (machine learning, reinforcement learning) and interventions (TMS, tDCS, pharmacology) to understand network dynamics for learning and brain plasticity. The research programme bridges work across scales (local circuits, global networks) and species (humans, rodents) to uncover the neurocomputations that support learning and brain plasticity.

The Chair of Lifespan Developmental Neuroscience investigates neurocognitive mechanisms underlying perceptual, cognitive, and motivational development across the lifespan. The main themes of our research are neurofunctional mechanisms underlying lifespan development of episodic and spatial memory, cognitive control, reward processing, decision making, perception and action. We also pursue applied research to study effects of behavioral intervention, non-invasive brain stimulation, or digital technologies in enhancing functional plasticity for individuals of difference ages. We utilize a broad range of neurocognitive (e.g., EEG, fNIRs, fMRI, tDCS) and computational methods. The here announced position is embedded in a newly established research group funded by the DFG (FOR5429), with a focus on modulating brain networks for memory and learning by using focalized transcranial electrical stimulation (tES). The subproject with which this position is associated will study effects of focalized tES on value-based sequential learning at the behavioral and brain levels in adults. The data collection for this subproject will mainly be carried out at the Berlin site (Center for Cognitive Neuroscience, FU Berlin).

The Chair of Lifespan Developmental Neuroscience investigates neurocognitive mechanisms underlying perceptual, cognitive, and motivational development across the lifespan. The main themes of our research are neurofunctional mechanisms underlying lifespan development of memory, cognitive control, reward processing, decision making, and multisensory perception. We also pursue applied research to study effects of behavioral intervention, non-invasive brain stimulation, or digital technologies in enhancing functional plasticity for individuals of difference ages. We utilize a broad range of neurocognitive (e.g., EEG, fNIRs, fMRI, tDCS) and computational methods. The lab has several testing rooms and is equipped with multiple EEG (64-channel and 32-channel) and fNIRs systems, as well as eye-tracking and virtual-reality devices. The MRI scanner (3T) and TMS-device can be accessed through the university’s NeuroImaging Center. TUD is a university of excellence supported by the DFG, which offers outstanding research opportunities. Researchers in this chair are involved in large research consortium and cluster, such as the DFG SFB 940 „Volition and Cognitive Control“ and DFG EXC 2050 „Tactile Internet with Human-in-the-Loop“.

Sleep strongly affects synaptic strength, making it critical for cognition, especially learning and memory formation. Whether and how sleep deprivation modulates human brain physiology and cognition is poorly understood. Here we examined how overnight sleep deprivation vs overnight sufficient sleep affects (a) cortical excitability, measured by transcranial magnetic stimulation, (b) inducibility of long-term potentiation (LTP)- and long-term depression (LTD)-like plasticity via transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS), and (c) learning, memory, and attention. We found that sleep deprivation increases cortical excitability due to enhanced glutamate-related cortical facilitation and decreases and/or reverses GABAergic cortical inhibition. Furthermore, tDCS-induced LTP-like plasticity (anodal) abolishes while the inhibitory LTD-like plasticity (cathodal) converts to excitatory LTP-like plasticity under sleep deprivation. This is associated with increased EEG theta oscillations due to sleep pressure. Motor learning, behavioral counterparts of plasticity, and working memory and attention, which rely on cortical excitability, are also impaired during sleep deprivation. Our study indicates that upscaled brain excitability and altered plasticity, due to sleep deprivation, are associated with impaired cognitive performance. Besides showing how brain physiology and cognition undergo changes (from neurophysiology to higher-order cognition) under sleep pressure, the findings have implications for variability and optimal application of noninvasive brain stimulation.

This talk will focus on our lab's extensive research on understanding and enhancing creative analogical reasoning. I will cover the development of the analogy finding matrix task, evidence for conscious augmentation of creative state during this task, and the real-world implications this ability has for college STEM education. I will also discuss recent research aimed at enhancing performance on this creative analogical reasoning task using both transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) and transcranial alternating current stimulation (tACS).

Transcranial electrical stimulation (tES) techniques, including transcranial alternating and direct current stimulation (tACS and tDCS), are non-invasive brain stimulation technologies increasingly used for modulation of targeted neural and cognitive processes. Integration of tES with human functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) provides a novel avenue in human brain mapping for investigating the neural mechanisms underlying tES. Advances in the field of tES-fMRI can be hampered by the methodological variability between studies that confounds comparability/replicability. To address the technical/methodological details and to propose a new framework for future research, the scientific international network of tES-fMRI (INTF) was founded with two main aims: • To foster scientific exchange between researchers for sharing ideas, exchanging experiences, and publishing consensus articles; • To implement the joint studies through a continuing dialogue with the institutes across the globe. The network organized three international scientific webinars, in which considerable heterogeneities of technical/methodological aspects in studies combining tES with fMRI were discussed along with strategies to help to bridge respective knowledge gaps, and distributes newsletters that are sent regularly to the network members from the Twitter and LinkedIn accounts.