
Unlocking the Full Cognitive Potential of the Brain
How can the brain’s cognitive potential be mobilized, enhanced and maintained? An interdisciplinary team from the fields of medicine, biology, biochemistry, psychology, physics, and pharmacology is investigating these questions in the DFG-funded Collaborative Research Center (CRC) 1436 “Neural Resources of Cognition”.

This year’s general meeting of the Collaborative Research Center 1436 will be…

Research Area A
What are the molecular and synaptic
foundations for cognitive enhancement?

Research Area B
How does cognitive training change
the neural circuitry of the brain?

Research Area C
Are changes in the neural networks of the brain
related to the mobilization of cognitive resources?


News from the neurosciences of the CRC
General Meeting 2023
This year’s general meeting of the Collaborative Research Center 1436 will be…
Online talk with Amy Arnsten
On monday, October 9th, 2023 Amy Arnsten, Albert E. Kent Professor of…
International Symposium “Neural Resources of Cognition”
At the Dorint Hotel Magdeburg our 1st International Symposium “Neural Resources of…
4th iSCAN Symposium
The 4th iSCAN Symposium, a premier scientific conference on spatial navigation in aging…
Talk announcement: Prof. Dr. Ueli Rutishauser
In our next CRC Speaker Series Prof. Ueli Rutishauser, Board of Governors…
Last Chance! Register now! Female Career Days 2023
If you’ve been thinking about signing up for our career days for…
Visit C03 on September 7th
Look behind the scenes and visit our CRC 1436 project C03 “Monitoring…
Lecture with Prof. Dr. Ueli Rutishauser
Prof. Ueli Rutishauser, Board of Governors Professor in Neurosciences, Department of Neurosurgery…
Final Call – MR-PET Meeting
Please note this is the final call for registration. Until Friday, you…
LINdoscope external lectures
As part of the upcoming LINdoscope advanced imaging and data analysis EMBO…
Our research focus
Is it possible to increase the performance of memory?
What is the hidden potential of the brain and what are its limits?
How can the brain’s cognitive potential be mobilized and enhanced?
The architecture of our brain provides biological limits for the performance of memory, attention, and our capacity for learning; this is evident on both the micro and macro scale. However, there is large variability within these limits and individual cognitive abilities can be improved through directed training. The goal of our Collaborative Research Center (CRC) is to uncover the performance limits of the human brain and to explore methodological approaches for improving this performance. We aim to understand which neurobiological principles limit cognitive resources and how these resources can be fully accessed or even enhanced. Further, we will identify new ways to preserve neural resources across the lifespan with targeted interventions.
More than 40 scientists in 22 individual projects are currently working in our CRC towards this exciting neuroscientific topic, which is also highly relevant in our current society.
Using the latest neuroscientific technologies and innovative methods, human and animal experimental studies will examine individual variability and transferable improvement in cognitive function. We place a specific focus on how performance improvements in one task can be transferred to other tasks and when task performance comes at the expense of other abilities. We also ask, why do cognitive abilities decline with age? And what are the tremendous resources of “super-agers”? Further, we are investigating how molecular and biochemical processes affect cognitive performance, for instance, with the deposition of tau and amyloid in the brain, or those that occur with sleep deprivation or other environmental influences. This project is funded by the German Research Foundation (DFG) and encompasses both the Otto von Guericke University Magdeburg and the Leibniz Institute of Neurobiology, as well as the German Center for Neurodegenerative Diseases (DZNE) Magdeburg site, Freie Universität Berlin, Charitè Universitätsmedizin Berlin, Forschungszentrum Jülich, and the universities of Düsseldorf, Heidelberg, and Göttingen.

Co-Spokesperson Dr. Michael Kreutz & Spokesperson Prof. Dr. med. Emrah Düzel
Publications of the CRC
Integration of nuclear Ca2+ transients and subnuclear protein shuttling provides a novel mechanism for the regulation of CREB-dependent gene expression
Karpova A, Samer S, Turacak R, Yuanxiang P, Kreutz MR. Cell Mol Life Sci (2023)
Vessel distance mapping: A novel methodology for assessing vascular-induced cognitive resilience
Berta Garcia-Garcia, Hendrik Mattern, Niklas Vockert,, Renat Yakupov, Frank Schreiber, Marco Spallazzi, Valentina Perosa, Aiden Haghikia, Oliver Speck, Emrah Düzel, Anne Maass, Stefanie Schreiber Neuroimage (2023)
Learning how network structure shapes decision-making for bio-inspired computing
Michael Schirner, Gustavo Deco, Petra Ritter Nat Commun (2023)
Rescue of synaptic and cognitive functions in polysialic acid-deficient mice and dementia models by short polysialic acid fragments
Hristo Varbanov , Shaobo Jia , Gaga Kochlamazashvili , Subhrajit Bhattacharya , Manal Ali Buabeid , Mohamed El Tabbal , Hussam Hayani , Stoyan Stoyanov , Weilun Sun , Hauke…
A shift in the mechanisms controlling hippocampal engram formation during brain maturation?
Adam I Ramsaran, Ying Wang, Ali Golbabaei, Stepan Aleshin, Mitchell L de Snoo, Bi-Ru Amy Yeung, Asim J Rashid, Ankit Awasthi, Jocelyn Lau, Lina M Tran, Sangyoon Y Ko, Andrin Abegg, Lana Chunan Duan, Cory McKenzie, Julia Gallucci, Moriam Ahmed, Rahul Kaushik, Alexander Dityatev,…
Plasma concentrations of anti-inflammatory cytokine TGF-β are associated with hippocampal structure related to explicit memory performance in older adults
M Raschick, A Richter, L Fischer, L Knopf, A Schult, R Yakupov, G Behnisch, K Guttek, E Düzel, I R Dunay, C I Seidenbecher, B Schraven, D Reinhold, B H…
Cognitive flexibility in mice: effects of puberty and role of NMDA receptor subunits
Seifried L, Soleimanpour E, Dieterich DC & Fendt M Cells (2023)
The relationship between resting-state amplitude fluctuations and memory-related deactivations of the default mode network in young and older adults
Jasmin M Kizilirmak, Joram Soch, Hartmut Schütze, Emrah Düzel, Hannah Feldhoff, Larissa Fischer, Lea Knopf, Anne Maass, Matthias Raschick, Annika Schult, Renat Yakupov, Anni Richter, Björn H Schott Hum Brain…
Repurposing drugs against Alzheimer’s disease: can the anti-multiple sclerosis drug fingolimod (FTY720) effectively tackle inflammation processes in AD?
Volkmar Leßmann, Georgia-Ioanna Kartalou, Thomas Endres, Marc Pawlitzki, Kurt Gottmann J Neural Transm (2023)
Single-value scores of memory-related brain activity reflect dissociable neuropsychological and anatomical signatures of neurocognitive aging
Richter A, Soch J, Kizilirmak JM, Fischer L, Schütze H, Assmann A, Behnisch G, Feldhoff H, Knopf L, Raschick M, Schult A, Seidenbecher CI, Yakupov R, Düzel E, Schott BH…
Extracellular Matrix Changes in Subcellular Brain Fractions and Cerebrospinal Fluid of Alzheimer’s Disease Patients
Lukas Höhn, Wilhelm Hußler, Anni Richter, Karl-Heinz Smalla, Anna-Maria Birkl-Toeglhofer, Christoph Birkl, Stefan Vielhaber, Stefan L Leber, Eckart D Gundelfinger, Johannes Haybaeck, Stefanie Schreiber, Constanze I Seidenbecher Int J Mol…
A cortical zoom-in operation underlies covert shifts of visual spatial attention
Mandy V Bartsch, Christian Merkel, Hendrik Strumpf, Mircea A Schoenfeld, John K Tsotsos, Jens-Max Hopf Sci Adv (2023)
Heparan Sulfates Regulate Axonal Excitability and Context Generalization through Ca2+/Calmodulin-Dependent Protein Kinase II
I. Song, T. Kuznetsova, D. Baidoe-Ansah, H. Mirzapourdelavar , O. Senkov, H. Hayani, A. Mironov, R. Kaushik, M. Druzin, S. Johansson, A. Dityatev Cells (2023)
Entering into a self-regulated learning mode prevents detrimental effects of feedback removal on memory
Peter Vavra, Leo Sokolovič, Emanuele Porcu, Pablo Ripollés, Antoni Rodriguez-Fornells, Toemme Noesselt NPJ Sci Learn (2023)
Jacob-induced transcriptional inactivation of CREB promotes Aβ-induced synapse loss in Alzheimer’s disease
K. M Grochowska, G. M Gomes, R. Raman, R. Kaushik, L. Sosulina, H. Kaneko, A. M Oelschlegel, P. Yuanxiang, I. Reyes-Resina, G. Bayraktar, S. Samer, C. Spilker, M. S Woo,…
Can moving in a redundant workspace accelerate motor adaptation?
Jahangir Esfandiari, Seyedsina Razavizadeh, Max-Philipp Stenner Journal of Neurophysiology (2022)
Structural and Functional MRI Data Differentially Predict Chronological Age and Behavioral Memory Performance
Soch J, Richter A, Kizilirmak JM, Schütze H, Feldhoff H, Fischer L, Knopf L, Raschick M, Schult A, Düzel E, Schott BH eNeuro (2022)
Seeing and extrapolating motion trajectories share common informative activation patterns in primary visual cortex
Camila Silveira Agostino, Christian Merkel, Felix Ball, Peter Vavra, Hermann Hinrichs, Toemme Noesselt Hum Brain Mapp (2022)
Choosing memory retrieval strategies: A critical role for inhibition in the dentate gyrus – ScienceDirect
Anne Albrecht, Iris Müller, Aliće Weiglein, Evangelia Pollali, Gürsel Çalışkan, Oliver Stork Neurobiology of Stress (2022)
In vivo tractography of human locus coeruleus—relation to 7T resting state fMRI, psychological measures and single subject validity
Thomas Liebe, Jörn Kaufmann, Dorothea Hämmerer, Matthew Betts, Martin Walter Molecular Psychiatry (2022)
Working memory and active sampling of the environment: Medial temporal contributions
Stefan Pollmann, Werner X. Schneider Handbook of Clinical Neurology (2022)
Discriminating Free Hand Movements Using Support Vector Machine and Recurrent Neural Network Algorithms
Christoph Reichert, Lisa Klemm, Raghava Vinaykanth Mushunuri, Avinash Kalyani, Stefanie Schreiber, Esther Kühn, Elena Azañón Sensors (2022)
D-cycloserine rescues scopolamine-induced deficits in cognitive flexibility in rats measured by the attentional set-shifting task
Md. Abu Bokor Siddik, Markus Fendt Behavioral Brain Research (2022)
Probing the Skin-Brain Axis: New Vistas Using Mouse Models
Aliće Weiglein, Evelyn Gaffal, Anne Albrecht Int J Mol Sci (2022)
Amyloid pathology but not APOE ε4 status is permissive for tau-related hippocampal dysfunction
Emrah Düzel, Gabriel Ziegler, David Berron, Anne Maass, Hartmut Schütze, Arturo Cardenas-Blanco, Wenzel Glanz, Coraline Metzger, Laura Dobisch, Martin Reuter, Annika Spottke, Frederic Brosseron, Klaus Fliessbach, Michael T Heneka, Christoph…
Reaching the Goal: Superior Navigators in Late Adulthood Provide A Novel Perspective into Successful Cognitive Aging
Ruojing Zhou, Tuğçe Belge, Thomas Wolbers TOPICS (2022)
Unimanual sensorimotor learning-A simultaneous EEG-fMRI aging study
Sabrina Chettouf, Paul Triebkorn, Andreas Daffertshofer, Petra Ritter Hum Brain Mapp (2022)
Intracerebroventricular infusion of the selective orexin 1 receptor antagonist SB-334867 impairs cognitive flexibility in a sex-dependent manner
Archana Durairaja, Ceylan-Scarlett Steinecke, Markus Fendt Behavioral Brain Research (2022)
Somatosensory omissions reveal action-related predictive processing
Dercksen, T., Widmann, A., Noesselt, T. & Wetzel, N. PsyArXiv (2022)
The needs of a synapse-How local organelles serve synaptic proteostasis
Katarzyna M Grochowska, Maria Andres-Alonso, Anna Karpova, Michael R Kreutz EMBO J (2022)
Non-invasive recording of high-frequency signals from the human spinal cord
Bankim Subhash Chander, Matthias Deliano, Elena Azañón, Lars Büntjen, Max-Philipp Stenner Neuroimage (2021)
Electrophysiological hallmarks of location-based and object-based visual multiple objects tracking
Christian Merkel, Jens-Max Hopf, Mircea Ariel Schoenfeld Eur J Neurosci (2022)
Antibiotic-induced gut dysbiosis leads to activation of microglia and impairment of cholinergic gamma oscillations in the hippocampus
Gürsel Çalışkan, Timothy French, Sara Enrile Lacalle, Miguel Del Angel, Johannes Steffen, Markus M Heimesaat, Ildiko Rita Dunay, Oliver Stork Brain Behav Immun (2022)
Associations among locus coeruleus catecholamines, tau pathology, and memory in aging
Ciampa CJ, Parent JH, Harrison TM, Fain RM, Betts MJ, Maass A, Winer JR, Baker SL, Janabi M, Furman DJ, D’Esposito M, Jagust WJ, Berry AS. Neuropsychopharmacology (2022)
Neddylation-dependent protein degradation is a nexus between synaptic insulin resistance, neuroinflammation and Alzheimer’s disease
Alessandro Dario Confettura, Eleonora Cuboni, Mohamed Rafeet Ammar, Shaobo Jia, Guilherme M Gomes, PingAn Yuanxiang, Rajeev Raman, Tingting Li , Katarzyna M Grochowska, Robert Ahrends, Anna Karpova, Alexander Dityatev, Michael…
Brief neuronal afterdischarges in the rat hippocampus lead to transient changes in oscillatory activity and to a very long-lasting decline in BOLD signals without inducing a hypoxic state
Alberto Arboit, Shih-Pi Ku, Karla Krautwald, Frank Angenstein Neuroimage (2021)
Jacob, a Synapto-Nuclear Protein Messenger Linking N-methyl-D-aspartate Receptor Activation to Nuclear Gene Expression
Katarzyna M Grochowska, Julia Bär, Guilherme M Gomes, Michael R Kreutz, Anna Karpova Front. Synaptic Neurosci (2021)
Fully automated deep learning-based localization and segmentation of the locus coeruleus in aging and Parkinson’s disease using neuromelanin-sensitive MRI
Max Dünnwald, Philipp Ernst, Emrah Düzel, Klaus Tönnies, Matthew J. Betts & Steffen Oeltze-Jafra International Journal of Computer Assisted Radiology and Surgery (2021)
Molecular Mechanisms of Memory Consolidation That Operate During Sleep
Irene Reyes-Resina, Sebastian Samer, Michael R Kreutz, Anja M Oelschlegel Front Mol Neurosci (2021)
Context value updating and multidimensional neuronal encoding in the retrosplenial cortex
Weilun Sun, Ilseob Choi, Stoyan Stoyanov, Oleg Senkov, Evgeni Ponimaskin, York Winter, Janelle Pakan, and Alexander Dityatev Nature Communications (2021)
Multiomics of synaptic junctions reveals altered lipid metabolism and signaling following environmental enrichment
Maximilian Borgmeyer, Cristina Coman, Canan Has, Hans-Frieder Schött, Tingting Li, Philipp Westhoff, Yam F H Cheung, Nils Hoffmann, PingAn Yuanxiang, Thomas Behnisch, Guilherme M Gomes, Mael Dumenieu, Michaela Schweizer, Michaela Chocholoušková, Michal Holčapek, Marina Mikhaylova, Michael R Kreutz, Robert Ahrends Cell Rep (2021)
The cholinergic system modulates negative BOLD responses in the prefrontal cortex once electrical perforant pathway stimulation triggers neuronal afterdischarges in the hippocampus
Alberto Arboit, Karla Krautwald,, Frank Angenstein J Cereb Blood Flow Metab (2021)
Content-specific vulnerability of recent episodic memories in Alzheimer’s disease
Xenia Grande, David Berron, Anne Maass, Wilma A. Bainbridge, Emrah DüzelNeuropsychologia, Neuropsychologia (2021)
Motivational learning biases are differentially modulated by genetic determinants of striatal and prefrontal dopamine function
Anni Richter, Lieke de Boer, Marc Guitart-Masip, Guaslija Behnisch, Constanze I. Seidenbecher and Björn H. Schott J Neural Transm (2021)
Dendritic Kv4.2 potassium channels selectively mediate spatial pattern separation in the dentate gyrus
Marie Oulé, Erika Atucha, Tenyse M Wells, Tamar Macharadze, Magdalena M Sauvage, Michael R Kreutz, Jeffrey Lopez-Rojas iScience (2021)
Laser-Induced Apoptosis of Corticothalamic Neurons in Layer VI of Auditory Cortex Impact on Cortical Frequency Processing
Katja Saldeitis, Marcus Jeschke, Eike Budinger, Frank W Ohl, Max F K Happel Front Neural Circuits (2021)
Brain extracellular matrix: An upcoming target in neurological and psychiatric disorders
Alexander Dityatev, Constanze Seidenbecher, and Markus Morawski Eur J Neurosci (2021)
Structure of serotonin receptors: molecular underpinning of receptor activation and modulation
Markus Zweckstetter, Alexander Dityatev & Evgeni Ponimaskin Signal Transduction and Targeted Therapy (2021)
A comprehensive score reflecting memory-related fMRI activations and deactivations as potential biomarker for neurocognitive aging.
Soch J, Richter A, Schütze H, Kizilirmak JM, Assmann A, Behnisch G, Feldhoff H, Fischer L, Heil J, Knopf L, Merkel C, Raschick M, Schietke CJ, Schult A, Seidenbecher CI,…
Hippocampal vascularization patterns exert local and distant effects on brain structure but not vascular pathology in old age
Niklas Vockert, Valentina Perosa, Gabriel Ziegler, Frank Schreiber, Anastasia Priester, Marco Spallazzi, Berta Garcia-Garcia, Merita Aruci, Hendrik Mattern, Aiden Haghikia, Emrah Düzel, Stefanie Schreiber, Anne Maass Brain Communications (2021)
Enhanced modulation of cell-type specific neuronal responses in mouse dorsal auditory field during locomotion
Henschke JU, Price AT & Pakan JMP Cell Calcium (2021)
Autism-associated SHANK3 missense point mutations impact conformational fluctuations and protein turnover at synapses
Michael Bucher, Stephan Niebling, Yuhao Han, Dmitry Molodenskiy, Fatemeh Hassani Nia, Hans-Jürgen Kreienkamp, Dmitri Svergun, Eunjoon Kim, Alla S Kostyukova, Michael R Kreutz, Marina Mikhaylova Elife (2021)
State Transitions During Discrimination Learning in the Gerbil Auditory Cortex Analyzed by Network Causality Metrics
Sebastian Samer, Rajeev Raman, Gregor Laube, Michael R. Kreutz & ARobert Kozma, Sanqing Hu, Yury Sokolov, Tim Wanger, Andreas L Schulz4, Marie L Woldeit, Ana I Gonçalves, Miklós Ruszinkó, Frank W…
BDNF haploinsufficiency induces behavioral endophenotypes of schizophrenia in male mice that are rescued by enriched environment
Mahmoud Harb, Justina Jagusch, Archana Durairaja, Thomas Endres, Volkmar Leßmann & Markus Fendt Translantional Psychiatry (2021)
Bridging Scales in Alzheimer’s Disease: Biological Framework for Brain Simulation With The Virtual Brain
Leon Stefanovski, Jil Mona Meier , Roopa Kalsank Pai, Paul Triebkorn, Tristram Lett, Leon Martin, Konstantin Bülau, Martin Hofmann-Apitius, Ana Solodkin, Anthony Randal McIntosh, Petra Ritter Front Neuroinform (2021)
Met carriers of the BDNF Val66Met polymorphism show reduced Glx/NAA in the pregenual ACC in two independent cohorts
Louise Martens, Luisa Herrmann, Lejla Colic, Meng Li, Anni Richter, Gusalija Behnisch, Oliver Stork, Constanze Seidenbecher, Björn H Schott, Martin Waltern, Gregor Laube, Michael R. Kreutz & Anna Karpova Sci…
Feature-Based Attentional Weighting and Re-weighting in the Absence of Visual Awareness
Lasse Güldener, Antonia Jüllig, David Soto, Stefan Pollmann Front Hum Neurosci (2021)
The nuclear lamina is a hub for the nuclear function of Jacob
Sebastian Samer, Rajeev Raman, Gregor Laube, Michael R. Kreutz & Anna Karpova Molecular Brain (2021)