PAST EVENTS
CONFERENCE
13th Annual Primate Neurobiology Meeting
April 26-28, 2023
The
meeting is organized by Melanie Wilke and SFB members Stefan Treue,
Alexander Gail, Hansjörg Scherberger, Igor Kagan, Caspar Schwiedrzik and
Raymundo Baez-Mendoza.
Participants may present any aspect of their work at any stage – from
the presentation of methods to that of concepts, from the introduction
of very first results to the discussion of work that may have already
been presented at other conferences. Students and postdocs working in
nonhuman primate laboratories to are particularly invited to
participate. The registration is open until March 31st
SYMPOSIUM at the 15th Göttingen Meeting of the German Neuroscience Society (NWG)
Insights into the neural basis of cognition from human intracranial electrophysiology
March 24, 2023, 1 PM - 3 PM; ZHG
The human brain produces complex cognitive operations
and behaviors, some of which are arguably uniquely human.
The primary means to investigate their neural basis
have been noninvasive techniques. However, the limited
spatiotemporal resolution of noninvasive imaging hampers
progress in understanding health and disease.
Human intracranial electrophysiology has emerged as a key
technology in overcoming these difficulties. In particular, the
high spatiotemporal resolution of intracranial EEG (iEEG) in
epilepsy patients undergoing presurgical evaluation enables
studying (sub)cortical dynamics underlying human cognition.
With specialized research electrodes, it has become possible
to extend these investigations across spatial scales, to the
level of cortical layers and single cells. This allows unraveling
the neural basis of complex behavior directly in the human
brain in unprecedented detail.
This symposium, organized by SFB member Caspar Schwiedrzik aims to elucidate neural mechanisms
underlying human cognitive processes using intracranial
recordings. We will address different facets of cognition,
taking complimentary perspectives from different recording
and analysis techniques; as well as providing insight into
ethical aspects and technical challenges when working with
patients. Hui Zhang (Bochum) will demonstrate how the reinstatement
and transformation of stimulus-specific memories can be
studied using multivariate analyses to identify meso- and
macroscale networks. Lucia Melloni (Frankfurt) will show how continuous
input is segmented into episodic memories using tasks involving
sequences and visual narratives using electrocorticography.
Randolph Helfrich (Tübingen) will talk about how population dynamics
of human prefrontal cortex integrate contextual cues and
prior evidence to guide human goal-directed behavior. Caspar
Schwiedrzik (Göttingen) )will present recordings with laminar resolution
investigating neural computations underlying predictive processing
in perception. Marcel Bausch (Bonn) will address the question
how content and context are combined to process relevant
memories using single neuron recordings in the medial
temporal lobe. Together, these talks will provide an exciting
overview of the burgeoning field of human intracranial
electrophysiology.
SYMPOSIUM at the 15th Göttingen Meeting of the German Neuroscience Society (NWG)
Neuroscience of naturalistic navigation and foraging in non-human primates
March 23, 2023, 11 AM - 1 PM; ZHG
A
core topic of the SFB 1528 will be featured in a symposium organised by
SFB speaker Alexander Gail and Irene Lacal. SFB members Zurna Ahmed and
Neda Shahidi will present their work, and international guest speakers
Jan Zimmermann (U of Minnesota) and Dora Angelaki (NY University) will
also give talks in a SFB satellite lecture on March 20 and/or 21.
A
main aim of system neuroscience research in primates is to understand
the neural underpinnings of goal directed behavior. With the advance in
wireless technologies for neural recordings, video-based motion tracking
and powerful tools for full-body behavior quantification, unprecedented
opportunities arise for studying brain networks during naturalistic
behaviors. In particular, ecologically highly relevant behaviors such as
multi-source foraging, free exploration in complex environments and
social interactions have become accessible for neurophysiological
studies.
This symposium brings together international researchers pioneering the
field of neurophysiology in non-human primates during unrestrained
behaviors in complex environments.
Daniel Huber (University of Geneva) will present
the latest development of EthoLoop, a novel tracking system able to
follow movements and analyze complex behaviors of unrestrained mouse
lemurs in real time in combination with wireless neural recordings.
Dora E. Angelaki (NY University) will show how hippocampal and
cortical activity in unrestrained rhesus monkeys relate to foraging
behavior both in freely moving and virtual reality environments.
Zurna Ahmed (German Primate Center & SFB 1528)
will introduce the Exploration Room, a novel modular experimental
setting encouraging unrestrained, yet repetitive full-body behaviors
beyond walking in rhesus macaques while recording from the
frontoparietal reach network.
Irene Lacal and Neda Shahidi (German Primate Center & SFB 1528) will
highlight novel paradigms in the Exploration Room for studying spatial
cognition during naturalistic solo or dyadic foraging and the
frontoparietal representations of dynamic evaluation of choices.
Jan Zimmermann (University of Minnesota) will present how
unconstrained behavior is organized across multiple spatial and temporal
scales in rhesus monkeys and how electrophysiology experiments can give
us a unique insight into these processes. DOUBLE LECTURE
March 21, 2023, 3 PM Michael-Lankeit-Hörsaal, German Primate Center
Jan Zimmermann (University of Minnesota): Timescales of behavior and neural processing
Behavior is organized across multiple spatial and temporal scales,
ranging from sub-second motor commands over multi-second movement plans
to long term foraging patterns. Currently it is unclear how the brain
solves this coordination of multiple intertwined temporal demands. While
classical neuroscience experiments typically look at or engage a fixed
temporal scale or horizon, ethological studies have long focused on the
analysis of naturalistic behavior across freely elicited temporal
scales. Here I will show some of the approaches my lab is taking to
understand the organization of timescales in behavior and neural
processing ranging from ultra-high field fMRI to multi-region wireless
electrophysiology in freely moving rhesus macaques.
Dora Angelaki (NY University): Active sensing and flexible neural coding during visually guided navigation
Natural behavior is flexible and supported by abstracted away
beliefs. To understand dynamic neural processing underlying natural
behaviour, we use continuous-time foraging tasks either in virtual
reality or in a freely-moving arena. Although task rules do not require
any particular eye movement, we find that where subjects look is an
important component of the behavior. For example, during a simple task
in which macaques use a joystick to steer and catch flashing fireflies
in a virtual environment lacking position cues, we find that subjects
physically tracked this latent task variable with their gaze – an
instance of embodied cognition. Restraining eye movements worsened task
performance suggesting that embodiment plays a computational role. The
above findings are well explained by a neural model with tuned
bidirectional connections between oculomotor circuits and circuits that
integrate sensory input. In contrast to other task optimized models,
this model correctly predicted that leading principal components of the
monkey posterior parietal cortex activity should encode their position
relative to the goal. These results explain the computational
significance of motor signals in evidence-integrating circuits and
suggest that plasticity between those circuits might enable efficient
learning of complex tasks via embodied cognition. UNFORTUNATELY, THE TALK BY JAN ZIMMERMANN HAD TO BE CANCELLED!
LECTURE
Oliver Tüscher (University Medical Center Mainz): Neurobiological candidate mechanisms for resilience - goal directed behaviour under stress
Feb 16, 2023, 10 AM; Michael-Lankeit-Hörsaal, German Primate Center
The ability to control our behavior is fundamental to individual and social functioning as well as for our resilience to adversity. Acting in accord with long-term goals requires control of interfering stimuli and impulses, the success of which depends on the several different processes. Over the last decade, we have empirically established a behavioral/cognitive component model of cognitive interference control and, using multimodal imaging and neurophysiological methods, described the neural networks primarily of response-related interference. Recently, we could reliably reveal that response inhibition is initiated by the right inferior frontal gyrus (rIFG) implemented by beta-band oscillations using spatially high-resolved electrophysiological source localization. Furthermore, emotional strain on response interference control is both, integrated within the IFG and functionally segregated among three subregions of the IFG. IFG activity is related to resilience and, intriguingly, better performance in emotional interference control predicts resilience longitudinally. These mechanistic insights pave the way for physiologically informed and precise interventions in real world social environments.
LECTURE
Constantin Rothkopf (TU Darmstadt): Computational models of naturalistic sensorimotor decisions and actions
Dec 1st, 2022, 3 PM; Michael-Lankeit-Hörsaal, German Primate Center
Models of human behavior ranging from decision making to sensorimotor control have been classically dichotomized as either being normative, i.e. prescribing how people ought to act, or as descriptive, i.e. capturing how people actually do act, often with the notion that they violate the prescriptions of normative theories. We will present a string of work from my lab, in which we use probabilistic inference methods to invert normative models thereby asking: for what uncertainties about the state of the world, subjective utilities including effort, and for what, possibly false, internal models is observed human behavior optimal? This not only reconciles normative and descriptive models but additionally allows recovering meaningful cognitive quantities describing participants’ behavior on an individual by individual and trial by trial basis. This framework provides computational level explanations and predictions for phenomena ranging from the adaptability of human blinking strategies, learning of active vision behaviors, to perceptual biases in continuous psychophysics, and strategies in visuomotor behavior such as ball catching or navigation.
LECTURE
Luca Bonini (University of Parma): Coding of actions of self and others in the monkey presupplementary motor cortex
October 20th, 2022, 2 PM; via zoom
The
presupplementary motor cortex (pre-SMA, or area F6 in the macaque) is
one of the brain areas most frequently activated in fMRI studies, and it
is thought to play a role in a variety of motor and executive
functions. A hallmark of this area is its rich set of connections with
prefrontal regions, on one side, and dorso-lateral premotor regions, on
the other, thereby acting as a bridge between high-order cognitive
functions and motor planning. In recent years, the research on this
region has gained momentum because of its role in social interactions
and in the encoding of actions of self and others. I will overview
recent evidence indicating that largely shared neural mechanisms and
substrates underlie the motor processing of objects, contextual cues,
observed actions and nonbiological motion in area F6, suggesting that a
basic property of this area consists in a multimodal and flexible
recruitment of motor plans based on a variety of stimuli from the
outside world. This unitary and coding principle may be shared by a
variety of different processes, enabling to account for the manifold of
functional properties and roles attributed to this brain area.
RESEARCH COLLOQUIUM SOCIAL NEUROSCIENCE
October 12th, 2022: 11.30 AM - 1 PM:
Camille Testard: Social connection in primates: adaptive function and underlying neural circuitry
Social
distancing measures implemented to slow the spread of COVID-19 have
triggered a worldwide craving for social contact, leading to surges in
anxiety and depression. This social desire is deeply rooted in our
evolutionary history: most of our closest nonhuman primate relatives
live in groups in which they form strong friendships. After a
devastating hurricane destroyed over 60% of the vegetation on a small
Caribbean island, instead of being more competitive, resident rhesus
macaques became more tolerant of each other, less aggressive, and
expanded their social networks. However, some monkeys increased their
social connectedness by a lot –leading to better chances of survival
almost 5 years after the storm– while others did not. What are the
neurobiological underpinnings of macaques’ ability to socially connect?
In this same free-ranging rhesus macaque population before the storm, we
found that the number of social connections individuals maintained
predicted the volume of specific structures –the mid–superior temporal
sulcus (mSTS) and ventral-dysgranular insula– implicated in social
decision-making and empathy, respectively. Moreover, single-unit
recordings in anatomically connected areas to the mSTS in freely-moving,
socially-interacting rhesus macaques demonstrate that neural ensembles
carry a wealth of information about species-typical social behavior and
contexts important for success in the wild –including neighboring
monkeys’ identity and preceding interactions.
Neda Shahidi: Population Codes and their Correlates in Decision Making
My goal is to understand the neural correlates of natural decision-making. During my Ph.D., I pursued this goal by investigating the coordinated activity of neurons in visual cortices of macaques prior to the animals’ reports, discriminating between two natural scenes. The accuracy of animals’ reports was correlated with the strength of coordination within a mid-way visual cortex (area V4), and between this area and the primary visual cortex (area V1), but not within V1. The results indicate that while stimulus encoding is related to the spiking rates of neurons, perceptual accuracy is correlated with the precise spiking coordination within visual cortical populations. I also investigated the foraging behavior of unrestrained macaques and the representation of reward expectation and choices in the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (dlPFC). We found that monkeys predict the reward outcomes to subsequently decide ‘when’ and ‘where’ to forage. Canonical components of the neural population activity represented animals’ reward expectations. These components predicted the next choices better than the true reward expectation and as well as the entire neural population. Together, the findings of the mentioned projects shaped my curiosity to study natural decision-making, highlighting the importance of linking behavior and neural activity in multiple dimensions and the significance of inter-area cortical communication..
My goal is to understand the neural correlates of natural decision-making. During my Ph.D., I pursued this goal by investigating the coordinated activity of neurons in visual cortices of macaques prior to the animals’ reports, discriminating between two natural scenes. The accuracy of animals’ reports was correlated with the strength of coordination within a mid-way visual cortex (area V4), and between this area and the primary visual cortex (area V1), but not within V1. The results indicate that while stimulus encoding is related to the spiking rates of neurons, perceptual accuracy is correlated with the precise spiking coordination within visual cortical populations. I also investigated the foraging behavior of unrestrained macaques and the representation of reward expectation and choices in the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (dlPFC). We found that monkeys predict the reward outcomes to subsequently decide ‘when’ and ‘where’ to forage. Canonical components of the neural population activity represented animals’ reward expectations. These components predicted the next choices better than the true reward expectation and as well as the entire neural population. Together, the findings of the mentioned projects shaped my curiosity to study natural decision-making, highlighting the importance of linking behavior and neural activity in multiple dimensions and the significance of inter-area cortical communication..
LECTURE
Karen J Parker (Stanford University): Developing a monkey model to drive streamlined translation and clinical impact for autism
October 6th, 2022; 5 PM (via Zoom)
Autism
spectrum disorder (ASD) is a prevalent and poorly understood
neurodevelopmental disorder. There are currently no laboratory-based
diagnostic tests to detect ASD, nor are there any disease-modifying
medications that effectively treat ASD’s core behavioral symptoms.
Scientific progress has been impeded, in part, by overreliance on model
organisms that fundamentally lack the sophisticated social and cognitive
abilities essential for modeling ASD. We therefore saw significant
value in studying naturally low-social rhesus monkeys to model human
social impairment, taking advantage of a large outdoor-housed colony for
behavioral screening and biomarker identification. Careful development
and validation of our animal model, combined with a strong commitment to
evaluating the translational utility of our preclinical findings
directly in patients with ASD, yielded a robust neurochemical marker
(cerebrospinal fluid vasopressin concentration) of trans-primate social
impairment and a medication (intranasal vasopressin) shown to improve
social cognition in naturally low-social monkeys and in children with
ASD. This translational primate research approach stands to advance our
understanding of ASD in a manner not readily achievable with existing
animal models, and can be adapted to investigate a variety of other
human brain disorders which currently lack valid preclinical options,
thereby streamlining translation and amplifying clinical impact more
broadly.
WORKSHOP
Social Curiosity
October 6th-7th, 2022
The
last decades have seen a resurgence of interest in understanding how
individuals actively solicit information about events and entities in
the world around them. This work typically characterises the individual
as a "lone scientist", intrinsically motivated to explore the world in
order to garner more information. However, humans and nonhuman primates
are rarely detached from the sociocultural contexts they live in and
even very young children have been shown to interact with their social
partners and make inferences about their thoughts and beliefs. Such
interactions are likely to influence how we explore the world. This
workshop will bring together researchers aiming to understand the role
of primate sociality in curiosity, bringing together varied perspectives
across a range of formats, such as structured talks, podium
discussions, flash talks and posters.
LECTURE
Peter Carruthers (University of Maryland): Questioning and model-free meta-cognition
September 28th, 2022, 3 PM (via zoom)
There
has been a flurry of recent work on the cognitive neuroscience of
curiosity. But everyone in the field offers definitions of curiosity
that are metacognitive in nature. Curiosity is said to be a desire for
knowledge, or a motivation to learn about something, and so on. This
appears problematic. It either makes it difficult to see how curiosity
can properly be attributed to cats and rats (let alone birds and bees),
or it commits us to attributing capacities for self-awareness in these
creatures for which we lack evidence. The goal of the talk is to offer a
re-interpretation of the main findings in the literature, showing how
it is possible for creatures to be curious while lacking any conception
of their own or others’ minds. But at the same time I will argue that
there is something that a metacognitive conception of curiosity gets
right. The talk will first situate curiosity among affective states
generally, before going on to elucidate both its contents and its
dependence on forms of model-free sensitivity to one's own ignorance. LECTURE
Hyowon Gweon
(Stanford University & Research Training Group 2070): Curious,
cooperative and communicative: How we learn from others and help others
learn
July 7, 2022; 3 PM, Michael-Lankeit-Hörsaal, German Primate Center
Humans
are not the only species that learns from others, but only humans learn
and communicate in rich, diverse social contexts, and build repertoires
of abstract, structured knowledge. What makes human social learning so
distinctive, powerful, and smart? In this talk, I argue that social
learning is inferential at its core (inferential social learning);
rather than copying what others do or trusting what others say, humans
learn from others by drawing rich inferences from others’ behaviors, and
help others learn by generating evidence tailored to others’ goals and
knowledge states. I will present a series of studies that support this
view and describe how they reveal the remarkably curious minds of young
children, not only about the physical world but also about others and
themselves. Children are curious about what others do & what their
actions mean, what others know & what they ought to know, and even
what others think of them and how to change their beliefs. The results
collectively paint a picture of young children as active social learners
who voraciously yet intelligently gather useful information from others
to learn about the world, and generously share what they know with
those around them.
LECTURE
Helen Blank
(University Medical Center Hamburg Eppendorf): You say "tomato", I say
"tumatu" - The influence of prior expectations on perception in social
interaction
June 27, 2022, 11 AM, Room 1.136, Georg-Elias-Müller-Institute for Psychology
Our
ability to successfully interact with other people depends on
recognizing and understanding other persons in different contexts.
Especially, when sensory signals are degraded, informative priors can
improve perception but may also lead to deception. Therefore,
unravelling how the human brain combines sensory input from face and
voice with prior knowledge is important. In my talk, I will present data
from several studies investigating how prior expectations influence
perception in social interaction. Firstly, I will contrast two
functionally distinct computational mechanisms by which prior
expectations can influence sensory representations of speech. Expected
features of the input can be enhanced or sharpened. Alternatively, in
Prediction Error accounts, expected features are suppressed and
unexpected signals are processed further. We aimed at distinguishing
between these two accounts by combining behavioural, univariate, and
multivariate fMRI measures with computational models. Secondly, I will
address the question why we are better in understanding familiar
speakers with data from behavioural online studies, in which listeners
could use voice context to normalize vowel perception. Finally, I will
discuss how the human brain could represent the strength of prior
expectations during face-identity recognition.