The RTG 2906 "Curiosity" started in August 2024 with 13 PhD students, 3 postdocs and 14 PIs. They come from a variety of disciplines, including neuroscientists, physicists, behavioral biologists, psychologists, and computer scientists. They are working together to unravel the many facets of curiosity - from the factors that influence its manifestation across species and throughout development, to the consequences of inducing curiosity-driven behavior in specific settings and the simulation of curiosity in neural network models of cognitive function. The group will officially kick off its activities with a “Theory kick-off” from September 2-4, 2024, including a series of talks and seminars given by international experts who examine curiosity from different disciplinary backgrounds. While the seminars are intended primarily for RTG members, the lectures are open to the public via Zoom in the spirit of shared knowledge and learning. Interested parties can join one or more sessions remotely via Zoom by registering before August 30. Please note that the link to join the session will be sent to registrants at a later date. Monday, September 2 9:00 am - 10 am Matthias Gruber, Cardiff University “How Curiosity Enhances Hippocampus-Dependent Memory: The Prediction, Appraisal, Curiosity, and Exploration (PACE) Framework” 1:00 pm - 2:00 pm Sofia Forss, University of Zurich “What can we learn from studying curiosity in animals? Insights from primatology” 2:30 pm – 4 pm Manuel Bohn, Leuphana University Lüneburg “ManyPrimates” Tuesday, September 3 9:00 am - 10 am Sabine Hunnius & Francesco Poli, Radboud University “Learning and curiosity in early development” 1:00 pm - 2:00 pm Lily FitzGibbon, University of Stirling “Embracing the complexity of curiosity” Wednesday, September 4 9:00 am - 10 am Ethan Bromberg-Martin, Washington University School of Medicine "Neural systems for information seeking" 1:00 pm - 2:00 pm Alireza Modirshanechi, Helmholtz Munich and MPI for Biological Cybernetics in Tübingen “The 'why' and 'what' of curiosity: A reinforcement learning perspective”

(mpi-ds) During this year's spring conference of the German Physical Society (DPG), Professor Viola Priesemann received the Young Scientist Award for Socio- and Econophysics. The physicist conducts research at the Max Planck Institute for Dynamics and Self-Organization and the University of Göttingen. The prize is endowed with 7,500 euros and honors her work on propagation processes in complex systems. Understanding complex networks such as the neuronal connections of the brain is at the heart of Priesemann's research. In this context, she and her research group model networks to investigate the processes of learning and thinking in the brain. During the coronavirus pandemic, she used this expertise in modeling complex systems to describe the spreading of the virus based on specific scenarios and parameters. The aim of her work is to decipher the physical principles underlying such networks. The international jury described Priesemann as "an outstanding scientist who has made important contributions in the field of data analysis and the theory of complex systems". At the Göttingen Campus, Viola Priesemann conducts research as part of the Cluster of Excellence "Multiscale Bioimaging" and the research networks "SFB Cognition of Interaction", "SFB Quantitative Synaptology", "RTG Curiosity" and "SPP Evolutionary Optimization of Neuronal Processing" on the question of how information spreads in neuronal and social networks - and how these networks learn. "Understanding human behavior using statistical physics approaches is a particular challenge," says Priesemann. "The novel data sets from social media such as Telegram or Twitter, or from the context of the corona pandemic, are the basis of our studies. I feel very honored to have received such a prestigious award for this new work." The Young Scientist Award is presented annually by the Association for the Physics of Socio-Economic Systems. It is intended to recognize the work of young researchers who contribute to a better understanding of socio-economic problems using methods derived from physics. The prize was awarded at the DPG Spring Meeting of the Condensed Matter Section in Berlin at the end of March 2024.

(dpz) The European Research Council (ERC) is funding Dr. Caspar Schwiedrzik, junior research group leader at the European Neuroscience Institute (ENI), a joint initiative of the University Medical Center Göttingen (UMG) and the Max Planck Society, and at the German Primate Center - Leibniz Institute for Primate Research, for his "excellent" basic research with one of the highest accolades in Europe. For his research into the learning processes of humans, rhesus monkeys and in computer models, he has been awarded an ERC Consolidator Grant worth two million euros for a period of five years. This is already the second ERC grant for Dr. Schwiedrzik. Lern more about the project.