News 2021

Our next speaker in the OCC Colloquium Series in the winter semester 2021/2022 is PH Dr. med. Elisabeth Kaufmann (LMU München).

• Time: December 15, 2021 (Wed), 4.15 p.m.
• Location: Online Zoom Meeting – Registration Required (occinfo@uni-muenster.de)

We congratulate Dr. Margarita Hessel  on successfully defending her thesis "Contribution of serotonergic receptors of the bed nucleus of stria terminalis (BNST) to phasic and sustained fear" at the Institute of Physiology I. The thesis was supervised by Dr. Thomas Seidenbecher, Prof. Dr. Norbert Sachser und Prof. Dr. Hans-Christian Pape.

Dr. Vanessa von Kortzfleisch has successfully defended her thesis this month. Her thesis  “At the edge of standardisation – Embracing heterogeneity for improved reproducibility in animal research?” was supervised by Prof. Dr. Helene Richter, Prof. Dr. Norbert Sachser and Prof. Dr.  Matthias Gamer (University of Würzburg). Congratulations!

We congratulate Dr. Nicole Kerkenberg  on successfully defending her thesis "The sex-specific role of the palmitoyl acyltransferase ZDHHC7 in the pathobiology of mental disorders" at the Faculty of Biology on  September 16th. The thesis was supervised by Prof. Dr. Weiqi Zhang, Prof. Dr. Ralf Stanewsky und Prof. Dr. Cornelius Faber.

Our first speaker in the OCC Colloquium Series in the winter semester 2021/22 is Dr. Anna Boback from the Uniersity of Stirling.
 

• Time: Oktober 06, 2021 (Wed), 16.15 h
• Location: Online Zoom Meeting – Registration Required (occinfo@uni-muenster.de)

After the all digital Retreat in 2020 this year's OCC Retreat was held as a hybrid event in Zoom and at the Institute of Sport and Exercise Sciences on September 27th and 28th. The OCC PhD students presented the current state of their projects in twenty-minute talks each followed by 10 minutes of discussion. Again, the diversity of the covered topics within the field of cognitive and behavioural neuroscience was impressive (complete program). In the evening on Monday OCC members and PhD students braved the cold weather outside and had the traditional OCC BBQ with a lot of interesting discussions and interdisciplinary discourse.

Save the date

This year, the OCC Retreat will be held as a hybrid event at the Leonardo Campus and via Zoom on September 27-28, 2021.

We will have   11 talks from OCC PhD students covering a broad range of interesting topics and different methods. Each talk will consist of a 20-minute presentation followed by a 10-minute discussion.

We are pleased to announce the virtual workshop by David Mehler. Dr. David Mehler is a medical doctor and neuroscientist, he works as a post-doctoral researcher at the Institute for Translational Psychiatry, University of Münster. The workshop on the topic "How to draft a registered report?" takes place on June 29th and July 2nd, 2021 between 9am to 12:30pm via ZOOM.

In our OCC PhD Program we welcome Hui-Fen Chen. In her research she is focused on the investigation of sex differences in peripheral and spinal signaling pathways and changes in supraspinal networks relevant for pain-related behaviors following acute incisional and chronic neuropathic pain in mice. The project is supervised by OCC member Prof. Dr. Cornelius Faber. The PhD Committee is completed by Prof. Dr. med. Esther Pogatzki-Zahn and OCC member Prof. Dr.Helene Richter.

Our next speaker in the OCC Colloquium Series in the summer semester 2021 is Prof. Dr. Sonja Bröer  (Freie Universität Berlin, Germany ).

• Time: June 16, 2021 (Wed), 4.15 p.m.
• Location: Online Zoom Meeting – Registration Required (occinfo@uni-muenster.de)

Our next speaker in the OCC Colloquium Series in the summer semester 2021 is Prof. Dr. Lisa Genzel  (Donders Institute for Brain, Cognition and Behaviour, Radboud University, Netherlands).

• Time: June 2, 2021 (Wed), 4.15 p.m.
• Location: Online Zoom Meeting – Registration Required (occinfo@uni-muenster.de)

Thomas Kroker is the newest member in our OCC PhD Program. In his PhD project he will try to extend his knowledge on vmPFC functioning by a causal modulation of its activity. TDCS is non-invasive brain stimulation technique that allows us to alter brain activity from outside the skull. The vmPFC stimulation will modulate decision-making and the processing of emotions after a feedback stimulus is presented. Thus, the vmPFC in involved in fear inhibition, risk-taking and the estimation of outcomes of our behavior. By altering vmPFC-activity we will be able to further investigate vmPFC functioning and change potentially dysfunctional cognitive processes, that induce maladaptive behavior.

The project is supervised by OCC member Prof. Dr. Markus Junghöfer. The PhD Committee is completed by the OCC members Prof. Dr. Jens Bölte and Prof. Dr. Ricarda Schubotz. Welcome!

We welcome Dr. Antje Peters from the Institute of Medical Psychology and Systems Neuroscience as a new member of the Otto Creutzfeldt Center in 2021.

Dr. Antje Peters works on questions about

• Neural correlates of consciousness
• Multivariate pattern analysis of EEG and fMRI data
• Modelling of consciousness and load effects

In our OCC PhD Program we welcome Falko Mecklenbrauck. In his research he investigates temporal persistence as a neural organizational principle of hierarchical stimuli as well as the underlying neural structure of hierarchy. The project is supervised by OCC member Prof. Dr. Ricarda Schubotz. The PhD Committee is completed by OCC member Prof. Dr. Joachim Groß and Dr. Moritz F. N. Wurm.

Our second speaker in the OCC Colloquium Series in the summer semester 2021 is Dr. Meike Ramon  (University of Fribourg, Switzerland).

• Time: May 12th, 2021 (Wed), 3 p.m.
• Location: Online Zoom Meeting – Registration Required (occinfo@uni-muenster.de)

Our first speaker in the OCC Colloquium Series in the summer semester 2021 is Prof. Dr. Benjamin Risse  (WWU Münster, Germany).

• Time: May 5th, 2021 (Wed), 4.15 p.m.
• Location: Online Zoom Meeting – Registration Required (occinfo@uni-muenster.de)

Svea Schröder has joined the OCC coordination team. We look forward to working with Svea and wish her a good start and a warm welcome.

Our next speaker in the OCC Colloquium Series in the winter semester 2020/2021 is Prof. Dr. Claudia Voelcker-Rehage  (WWU Münster, Germany).

• Time: March 17, 2021 (Wed), 4.15 p.m.
• Location: Online Zoom Meeting – Registration Required (occinfo@uni-muenster.de)

The OCC is glad to announce that Prof. Dr. Claudia Voelcker-Rehage (Neuromotor Behavior and Exercise / Institute of Sport and Exercise Sciences) will give a talk in the OCC-Neuroscience-Colloquium on Wednesday, 17th of March.

Her colleague Dr. Nils Henrik Pixa will give the Masterclass the next day (Thursday, 18th of March).

More information like the title and abstract will follow. Please save the dates.

We congratulate Dr. Wanja Mößing on successfully defending his thesis "Dynamics of electroencephalographic alpha oscillations during visual memory" at the Institute of Psychology on Friday, February 5th. The thesis was supervised by Prof. Dr. Niko Busch, Prof. Dr. Markus Lappe and Prof. Dr. Jens Bölte.

Dr. Nico Broers has successfully defended his thesis this month. His thesis  “Exploring Memories of Scenes" was supervised by Prof. Dr. Niko Busch, Prof. Dr. Pienie Zwitserlood and Dr. Radoslaw Martin Cichy. Congratulations!

Unfortunately our next speaker in the OCC Colloquium Series in the winter semester 2020/2021  Prof. Dr. Volker Stefanski  (University Hohenheim, Germany)

• Time: January 27, 2021 (Wed), 4.15 p.m.
• Location: Online Zoom Meeting – Registration Required (occinfo@uni-muenster.de)

In our OCC PhD Program we welcome the first new member in the year 2021 . It is Frauke Heins. Her research project aims to examine how post-saccadic feedback signals have to be designed to induce learning of new action-perception contingencies in an efficient and natural way. The project is supervised by OCC member Prof. Dr. Markus Lappe and the PhD Committee is completed by Dr. Svenja Gremmler and Prof. Dr. Annalisa Bosco from the University of Bologna. Welcome!