B07 – Circuit-specific improvements of mnemonic discrimination in the rodent and human entorhino-hippocampal subnetworks

B07

Graphical abstract B07 2025-2028

We hypothesize that the neural resources for spatial and non-spatial memory can be selectively mobilised in a network-specific manner. Our research strategy consists in targeting distinct entorhino-hippocampal subnetworks, deploying exogenous (Deep Brain Stimulation, optogenetics) and endogenous stimulation (cognitive training) using a cross-species approach and, characterising at the single-cell and whole-brain levels the physiological mechanisms underlying this mobilisation. 

Principal Investigators

CRC 1436 member Frank Angenstein

Prof. Dr. med. Frank Angenstein

CRC 1436 Member Davide Ciliberti

Dr. Davide Ciliberti

CRC 1436 member Magdalena Sauvage

Prof. Dr. Magdalena Sauvage

Prof. Dr. med. Frank Angenstein

Since 2012 I am head of the research group “Functional Neuroimaging” at the German Center for Neurodegenerative Diseases (DZNE) in Magdeburg. My work focuses on the search for the neurophysiological basis of fMRI imaging and how different modulatory transmitter systems influence the interaction of the hippocampus with individual cortical and subcortical brain structures under normal and pathological conditions. To address this, individual brain structures are selectively activated by electrical, optogenetic, or chemogenetic stimulation, and the resulting neuronal responses are simultaneously measured both directly by in vivo electrophysiological recordings in the hippocampus and indirectly in the whole brain by fMRI measurements.

Dr. Davide Ciliberti

Dr. Davide Ciliberti is the head of the “Cognitive Electrophysiology and Neurotechnology” research group at the Institute for Cognitive Neurology and Dementia Research at the Medical Faculty of the Otto-von-Guericke University Magdeburg. He studied Biomedical Engineering at Polytechnic of Milan (Milan, Italy) and conducted his doctoral studies at the NeuroElectronics Research Flanders (KU Leuven, Leuven, Belgium). During his postdoctoral training at UCLA (Los Angeles, California, USA) in the laboratory of Prof. Itzhak Fried, he gained expertise in invasive human brain recordings and stimulation.

He is an expert of electrophysiological recordings and brain-computer interfaces. His research group investigates the dynamics of human memory by means of intracranial recordings of local field potentials and single-unit activity in neurosurgical epilepsy patients. His group also deploys electrical deep-brain stimulation and closed-loop approaches to enhance memory, with the long-term goal of developing a cognitive neuro prosthesis for memory restoration.

Prof. Dr. Magdalena Sauvage

Magdalena Sauvage leads the Functional Architecture of Memory (FAM) department and co-directs the Leibniz Institute for Neurobiology (LIN) in Magdeburg. She gained expertise in memory function throughout her career at the MPI for Psychiatry (Munich, Germany), MIT (Graybiel lab, Boston, USA) and Boston University (Eichenbaum lab, USA). Her department investigates the neural basis of memory in health and pathology using human to rats translational tasks combined with high-resolution molecular imaging, optogenetics, single-cell in-vivo electrophysiology and 9.4T fMRI in awake rats. She organizes the biennal international and interdisciplinary FAM conference series, is member of the CRC1436 Steering Committee and serves as editor for “Neurobiology of Learning and Memory”.

Publications of the project B07