Scientific Advisory Board
The scientific work of the Institute is evaluated every two years by an international panel of independent experts, forming the Scientific Advisory Board (SAB).
Members of the current panel are:
- Prof. Dr. Rodney Douglas (Institute of Neuroinformatics, ETH Zürich, Switzerland)
- Prof. Dr. Russel D. Fernald (Department of Biology, Stanford University, Stanford, USA)
- Prof. Dr. Yves Frégnac (Unité de Neurosciences Intégratives et Computationnelles, CNRS UPR 2191, Gif-sur-Yvette, France)
- Prof. Dr. Kristen M. Harris (Center for Learning and Memory, University of Texas at Austin, Austin, USA)
- Prof. Dr. Terrence J. Sejnowski (Computational Neurobiology Lab, Salk Institute for Biological Studies, La Jolla, USA)
- Prof. Dr. Dr. Antoine Triller (Département de Biologie, INSERM U789, École Normale Supérieure, Paris Cedex, France)
Latest News
| 09.05.2012 |
Think Global, Act local: new roles for protein synthesis at synapsesHow do we build a memory in the brain? It is well known that for animals (and humans) new proteins are needed to establish long-term memories. During learning information is stored at the synapses, the junctions connecting nerve cells. Synapses also require new proteins in order to show changes in their strength (synaptic plasticity). Historically, scientists have focused on the cell body as the place where the required proteins are synthesized. However, in recent years there has been increasing focus on the dendrites and axons (the compartments that meet to form synapses) as a potential site for protein synthesis. Protein synthesis machines have been observed there as well as a limited number of their templates, the messenger RNA molecules. The limited number of mRNAs observed in dendrites and axons placed constraints on the constellation of proteins that could be synthesized to help synapses work and change. Researchers from Erin Schuman's lab at the Max Planck Institute (MPI) for Brain Research used new-generation sequencing to directly identify a very large number (over 2500) of new mRNA molecules that are present at the axons and dendrites. Using high-resolution imaging techniques they were able to both quantify and visualize individual mRNA molecules. They published their findings in the latest issue of Neuron. |
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| 27.01.2012 |
Erin Schuman receives an ERC Advanced Grant to study the fundamentals of synaptic plasticityProf. Erin Schuman, Director at the Max Planck Institute for Brain Research is one of the seven Max Planck Directors who receives this prestigious grant. These grants, for exceptional research leaders, are a special program of the ERC designed to fund ambitious, pioneering and unconventional science. In the latest round (2011) the European Commission received 2009 applications but made only 266 awards, adding up to 590 million Euro. |
| 27.01.2012 |
New mechanistic insights into adaptive learningThe brain is a fantastically complex and mysterious device, too large and with too many internal connections to be entirely programmable genetically. Its internal connectivity must therefore self-organize, based on the one hand on genetically regulated biases and on experience and learning on the other. The brain can change its internal connectivity based, for example, on correlations between the inputs it receives and the consequences of actions associated with those inputs, in a phenomenon we generally call associative learning. There are, in our daily life, numerous examples of this type of learning; its consequence is that a smell or a tune on the radio can trigger memories from the past, which lay dormant for some time. “Such a recall — to a smell, sound, taste, or any other sensory stimulus — is evidence of associative learning, and what interested us here was to understand the tricks used by the brain to make these associations specific”, says Gilles Laurent, Director at the Max Planck Institute for Brain Research. |
| 18.01.2012 |
Visit Korean delegationOn January 12, 2012 a delegation of the Republic of Korea visited the Max Planck Institute for Brain Research. |
| 06.12.2011 |
Scientists at the MPI for Brain Research visualize new protein synthesis in zebrafishThe newly synthesized proteins can be labeled in intact organisms via metabolic incorporation of non-canonical amino acids. |
