Coordination Funds

我们的环境在不断变化。在这些条件下成功生存意味着我们的行为也必须灵活。我们经历不同的地方和背景，必须快速执行不同的任务，并且需要不断制定和重新安排行动策略。这些能力不是遗传的，而是随着年龄的增长而发展，它们的退化形成了几种病理的核心。通常认为，在哺乳动物物种中，前额叶皮层（PFC）是大脑的中枢区域，负责思维的灵活性（即认知灵活性）。神经科学的一个基本目标是破译管理科普永久变化环境的能力的动态原则。然而，这一目标的实验实现已被证明是非常困难的，因为缺乏适当的方法来监测和选择性地操纵行为动物中单个神经元或神经元集合的活动。过去几年令人印象深刻的技术和分析发展使我们能够解决关键问题：哪些神经元基础控制认知灵活性？PFC缺乏固定的专业化或连接模式是否可以解释灵活性？尽管前额叶明显缺乏同源性，但灵活性的神经编码和计算机制在哺乳动物物种中是共同的吗？在一个协调和跨学科的研究工作，跨越不同物种，概念和方法的互补研究专业知识，研究单元5159旨在了解如何前额叶回路编码和计算认知灵活性（即工作记忆和决策）的定义明确的方面。工作的假设是，对于这些能力，神经元合奏功能同源领域的PFC从不同的物种是通过时间协调定义的输出和输入。 类似的监测和操纵的前额叶回路的实验结果将被整合到计算模型中，目的是揭示总体认知灵活性的神经动力学原则，这是常见的啮齿动物，猴子，和人类，一方面，和物种特异性专业化的前额叶编码，另一方面。为了促进联盟内概念和方法专业知识的有效结合，在每个项目中定义了实验室之间的通用工作包（和相应的同事交换）。在中长期范围内，研究单位将确定控制跨物种和寿命的行为灵活性的神经机制（第一个资助期），并将阐明电路布线错误和疾病相关认知缺陷之间的联系（第二个资助期）。

Our environment is constantly changing. Successful survival under these conditions implies that our behavior has to be flexible as well. We experience different places and contexts, have to conduct different tasks in a rapid sequence and need to constantly develop and re-arrange acting strategies. These abilities are not inherited, but develop with age and their regression forms the core of several pathologies. It is commonly held that in mammalian species the prefrontal cortex (PFC) is the hub brain area accounting for the flexibility of minds (i.e. cognitive flexibility). A fundamental aim of neuroscience is to decipher the dynamic principles that govern the ability to cope with a permanently changing environment. However, experimental achievement of this aim has proven notoriously difficult, since appropriate methods to monitor and selectively manipulate the activity of single neurons or neuronal ensembles in behaving animals were lacking. The impressive technological and analytical development during the last years enables now to address crucial questions: Which neuronal underpinnings control cognitive flexibility? Does the lack of stereotyped specialization or the connectivity patterns in PFC account for flexibility? Are the neural codes and computational mechanisms of flexibility common across mammalian species despite the apparent lack of prefrontal homology? In a coordinated and interdisciplinary research effort spanning complementary research expertise in different species, concepts, and methodologies, the Research Unit 5159 aims to understand how prefrontal circuits code and compute well-defined aspects of cognitive flexibility (i.e. working memory and decision making). The working hypothesis is that, for these abilities, neuronal ensembles in functionally homologous areas of PFC from different species are formed through temporal coordination defined by outputs and inputs. Experimental results from similar monitoring and manipulation of prefrontal circuits will be integrated into computational models with the aim of revealing overarching neuro-dynamical principles of cognitive flexibility that are common to rodents, monkeys, and humans, on the one hand, and the species-specific specialization of prefrontal coding, on the other hand. To foster efficient binding of conceptual and methodological expertise within the consortium, common work packages (and corresponding co-worker exchange) between labs are defined in each project. On a medium- to long-term scale the Research Unit will identify the neuronal mechanisms, which control behavioral flexibility across species and life span (1st funding period) and will elucidate the link between circuit miswiring and disease-relevant cognitive deficits (2nd funding period).