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Participating Research Establishments: Faculty of Medicine • Paul Flechsig Institute of Brain Research • Carl Ludwig Institute of Physiology • Rudolf Boehm Institute of Pharmacology and Toxicology • Institute of Biochemistry • Interdisciplinary Centre for Clinical Research Leipzig (IZKF) • Innovation Centre Computer Assisted Surgery (ICCAS) • Centre for Neurological Rehabilitation Leipzig (NRZ) University Hospital • Department of Neurology • Department of Neurosurgery • Day Care Clinic of Cognitive Neurology • Department of Otorhinolaryngology • Department of Ophthalmology • Department of Psychiatry • Department of Nuclear Medicine Faculty of Biosciences, Pharmacy and Psychology • Institute of Psychology I • Institute of Biology II Faculty of Philology • Institute of Linguistics TOP-LEVEL RESEARCH AREA Brain, Cognition and Language Faculty of Physics and Earth Sciences • Institute of Experimental Physics I Faculty of Mathematics and Computer Science • Institute of Computer Science Central Departments • Centre for Cognitive Sciences (ZfK) Max Planck Institute • Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Science • Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology • Max Planck Institute for Mathematics in the Sciences Imprint: Contact: Universität Leipzig Vice-Rector Research Prof. Dr. M. Schlegel Ritterstr. 26, 04109 Leipzig E-Mail: [email protected] www.uni-leipzig.de/profil Speaker PbF IV: Prof. Dr. R. Rübsamen Coordination and Public Relations PbF IV: S. Hasse Organization & Typesetting: simons & schreiber WA GmbH 09/2007 Publisher: Universität Leipzig Speaker PbF IV: Prof. Dr. R. Rübsamen Editing: Coordination and Public Relations PbF IV: S. Hasse Picture Credits: Universität Leipzig Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Science Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology Max Planck Institute for Mathematics in the Sciences photocase.com Brain, Cognition and Language What constitutes our personality lies hidden here: in the brain, probably our most interesting organ. Its amazing cognitive abilities such as attention, perception, learning, memory, motor function and language are being studied by scientists in the top-level research area “Brain, Cognition and Language” (PbF IV) at the University of Leipzig. The goal is to make sense of the organic foundations of mental achievements, to find out how behaviour is controlled, to better understand brain diseases and thus develop innovative therapeutic Brain, Cognition and Language Questions of Today approaches. Various university and non-university research establishments in the natural sciences and humanities as well as in medicine are participating. In this way, a very broad spectrum of methods can be used. This multidimensional research approach forms the basis for further clarifying the brain’s complex processes in interdisciplinary research projects. “Brain, Cognition and Language” is one of six top-level research areas at the University of Leipzig that deals with increasingly complex questions of the day through accelerated interdisciplinary cooperation. Top-Level Research Area IV Multifunctional Materials and Processes from Molecules and Nanoobjects Mathematical Sciences Environmental Changes and Diseases Contested Orders Molecular and Cellular Communication: Biotechnology, Bioinformatics and Biomedical Science in Therapy and Diagnostics Ontogeny and Phylogeny Humans and Primates: A Comparison Where did we come from and where are we going? – The scientists in the area of “Ontogeny and Phylogeny” are interested in this topic. They want to find out how our brain develops in the course of a lifetime and how it differs from that of other primates. First, the way children understand the world must be analysed: behavioural studies look into the development of their cognitive abilities – for example memory abilities –, how they learn to judge or understand how other people preceive the world. What the mature adult brain is capable of and how these capabilities worsen with age is also being studied. The results are compared with those from behavioural research conducted on non-human primates. This way, the researchers will find out which cognitive abilities separate us from the great apes and which do not. – Can primates examine and solve complex problems, for example, get to hidden food? Do they cooperate with one another? How do they understand their physical and social environment? With this, and in connection with research in genetics and in linguistics, it is finally possible to make general statements about human prehistory. Scientists are observing primate behaviour at the Wolfgang Köhler Primate Research Centre in Pongoland at the Leipzig Zoo. I want something you don’t want! – Through play, scientists investigate the age at which children begin to understand that people can have different desires and goals. Forces United against Damage to the Nervous System When body and mind no longer wish to obey us correctly, nerve damage may be the cause, as a result of heredity, accident or disease. So it is today, for example, stroke and Alzheimer’s disease are threatening to become common ailments. Understanding the bases of these diseases and developing effective countermeasures is the objective of the branches of medical research cooperating in the area of “Degeneration, Regeneration and Therapy“. Among other things, the scientists are investigating the mechanisms that lead to the emergence of Parkinson’s and Model of Alzheimer’s disease in a mouse. ß-amyloid plaques result from a mutation in the animal’s genome. These are the harmful protein deposits typical in the brain with Alzheimer’s. They increase progressively with age. Degeneration, Regeneration and Therapy Alzheimer’s disease. They are looking for innovative ways to reliably diagnose and treat these neurodegenerative diseases. In addition, they are continuing to improve surgical methods, such as those, for example, employed in the use of brain pacemakers for Parkinson’s disease and in the surgical treatment of brain tumors. What counts for a great deal here is the period after the event – the recovery. Modern therapy methods are being developed and expanded for this, thus making it possible for a patient to integrate once again into everyday life. Implantation of brain pacemakers for Parkinson’s disease . A navigation aid attached to the brain makes the accurate positioning of the electrodes in the brain possible. Neuronal and Glial Interaction Communication among Cells 100,000,000,000 or more – each of us carries this enormous quantity of neurons in our brain. So at least 100 billion active cells are the basis for everything we think and feel. The neurons communicate with one another and in doing so process impressions and information taken in by the senses. But what transpires in the exchange between two cells? How does a nerve cell interact with another or with glial cells? Scientists are looking into this with very different methods: microscopy, cell staining or electrophysiology make it possible to Model of the interactions between neurons (blue) and glial cells (yellow) in the retina of the eye. Glial cells lead surplus ions and water into the blood vessels (red). They also recycle neuronal messengers: they transfer the transmitters into an inactive form, which can then be taken up again into the neurons. Immunocytochemical triple staining of cells from the hippocampus of a mouse’s brain. The neuron (blue) is surrounded by a network of glial cells (red) and communicates with other neurons via a considerable number of synapses (green). look into the microcosm of a cell. Then it becomes clear what happens to neurons when we are learning or how cell communication can be changed through pharmacological influence. Researchers can also describe in ever greater detail how the activity of one cell affects that of other cells – for example, in areas of the brain, processing auditory sensations or in the retina of the eye. These are the basics for understanding larger connections. With the knowledge gained about the interactions of individual cells in the nervous system, other scientists in the “Brain, Cognition and Language” research group can work on how larger unions of cells and neuronal networks operate. Language and Nonverbal Communication Understanding the Faculty of Language Language is the one cognitive ability that we humans share with no other species. Extremely complex, it is the basis on which our society interacts and functions. Understanding this system of communication is one of the tasks of the top-level research area “Brain, Cognition and Language”. Researchers examine the formal structure of language as well as language production and processing. Why, for example, is a sentence developed grammatically the way it is and are there identical features in this construction within different languages around the Analysis of Chinatang, one of the Sino-Tibetan languages of Nepal threatened with extinction. Audiovisual recordings of this language are translated and examined linguistically. By comparing with other languages, the world-wide distribution of grammatical structures is being investigated. Language processing areas in the left side of the cerebrum: the primary auditory cortex (blue), areas of the brain that work on syntax (red), areas of the brain that analyse the meanings of words (yellow) and an area that integrates syntax and word meaning (red-striped). world? How are words and their meaning represented in our brain? Where and how is language processed? How do the brain structures of a child, learning to speak, develop? But not only humans communicate. Primates, for example, make themselves understood with sounds and gestures. How they use this nonverbal communication in order to maintain the social structures within their group is examined in primates living in the wild. Neuronal Networks Response characteristics of an auditory neuron from a gerbil brain stem. Using the mathematical model, it can be predicted when and how strongly the neuron responds to a specific stimulus frequency. The Brain – a Biocomputer? Stimulating our senses leads to fireworks of neuronal excitation in the brain – the input is processed. After the stimulation, there always follows the activity of innumerable neurons in different areas of the brain. There are brain areas which are active one after the other and those which are active at the same time: the neurons cooperate in widely ramified networks. How these are organized is what the scientists want to find out and for this purpose they pursue stimulation in the brain with the help of different imaging procedures, for example magnetic resonance tomography (MRT) or electroencephalography (EEG). In the process, they are discovering at which point which parts of the brain are active after a certain stimulation. This way they will also be able to investigate hemisphere specialisation, the phenomenon that some things that we perceive are processed more on one side of the brain than on the other. But apart from whether something is processed in the left or right side of the brain, the question remains as to how a neuronal network functions at all. Mathematicians are trying to find Event-correlated potentials and activation map of the cerebral cortex measured on the surface of the brain when hearing sounds. an answer by analysing the dynamic processes taking place in neuronal structures. The resulting theoretical models should describe how the brain takes in and processes information.