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Scientific Rationale and Strategic Background

Scientific Rationale

The behavioral neurosciences and related disciplines have seen spectacular scientific advances that make them rich in scientific opportunity. The combination of functional neuroimaging with sophisticated computational modelling of cognitive processes has revolutionized our understanding of human mental processes. These advances make it possible to arrive at a more adequate understanding of cognitive aging and psychopathology, two empirically overlapping phenomena that are of great importance to science and society. Of critical importance is a stronger reliance on computational methods to discover and generalize variable and invariant relations between brain and behavior, including the underlying molecular mechanisms and their modulation by common genetic polymorphisms.

Strategic Background

The Wellcome Trust Centre for Neuroimaging and its aligned institutions, particularly the Gatsby Computational Neuroscience Unit focus on the neuronal basis of cognition. UCL has an outstanding track record of scientific discovery and publication in leading journals. Developing plans in partnership with colleagues in the MPS will open new scientific opportunities. The MPS has a range of outstanding institutes with complimentary strengths and interests. Among them, the Center for Lifespan Psychology at the Max Planck Institute for Human Development, Berlin, is an international leader in cognitive aging research. The Neurology department at the Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences, Leipzig, pioneers multimodal imaging methods to arrive at a more accurate picture of human brain functions and their relations to normal and pathological forms of behavior.

Proposal

The initiative will be able to realize the potential of the scientific strengths at UCL and the MPS to build internationally leading research opportunities that neither could achieve alone. It will comprise three programs:

  • Scientific meetings and fellowship program. The research teams will hold an annual retreat in the areas of cognitive aging and psychopathology to develop new approaches and discuss collaborative work. The PIs and post-doctoral scientists will visit the partner institution in the course of each year.
  • Collaborative research program. The core group will initiate and implement a joint research program on the development and application of computational techniques to uncover the neurobiology of cognition in aging and neuropsychiatric disorders. In particular, decision neuroscience provides a theoretical framework for defining many high-level cognitive deficits seen in humans, such as impulsivity, indecisiveness and psychomotor poverty. The program will target two sets of behaviors: (a) aging changes in episodic memory, risk preference, reward sensitivity, loss aversion, and inter-temporal choice, with a focus on mechanisms associated with between-person differences in these changes; (b) alterations in cognition due to mental disorders, with a focus on affective disorders. The two sets of behaviors overlap, as indicated by the increasing prominence of geriatric psychiatry, and will be investigated both separately and jointly. The MPS-UCL collaboration will enable an integration of computational systems level expertise, a particular strength in London, with expertise on cognitive aging and individual differences at the MPI for Human Development in Berlin and in multimodal imaging at the MPI for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences at Leipzig.
  • Student exchange program. A student exchange program will allow graduate students to spend a period of months in one of the partner institutions. In 2012, a summer school will be co-organized by UCL and MPS researchers to attract the best students to the program.

 
See Research Examples

MPS-UCL Initiative

Max Planck Society

mps-ucl [at] mpib-berlin [dot] mpg.de

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Core Group

Principal investigators

University College London (UCL)
Ray Dolan (Coordinator UCL)
Peter Dayan
Emrah Duzel (also at University of Magdeburg)
Karl Friston
Read Montague

Max Planck Society (MPS)
Hans-Jochen Heinze (Leipzig, also at University of Magdeburg)
Ulman Lindenberger (Berlin, Coordinator MPS)
Arno Villringer (Leipzig)

Other Institutions
Lars Bäckman (Karolinska Institute, Stockholm; neurochemistry of the aging brain)
Hauke Heekeren (Free University of Berlin; decision making)
Klaas Enno Stephan (University of Zürich; large-scale neurocomputational modelling)
Naftali Raz (Wayne State University; neuroanatomy of the aging brain)
Gerhard Roth (University of Bremen; emotion regulation and personality)

Cooperating Institutions

UNIVERSITY COLLEGE LONDON (UCL)