Graduations & Awards

At the annual meeting of the MPG on 25 June 2025, the Otto Hahn Medal was awarded 28 times for outstanding scientific achievements in connection with doctoral theses. This year, Katharina Menn from the Department of Neuropsychology and Malte Brammerloh from the Department of Neurophysics at the Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences (MPI CBS) received two of the coveted awards. Here they answer three questions about their research in a short interview.
 

Joëlle A. M. Schroën (Dept. of Neuropsychology, MPI CBS Leipzig). Bridging the causality gap: Insights into the spatiotemporal dynamics of language comprehension. Faculty of Life Sciences, Leipzig University, February 2025.

Niklas Wallstein (NMR Group, MPI CBS Leipzig). Comprehensive characterisation of proton relaxation in ex vivo white matter. Faculty of Physics and Earth System Sciences, Leipzig University, February 2025.

Renzo Torrecuso (NMR Group, MPI CBS Leipzig). Advanced image processing concepts for characterizing movement disorders. Faculty of Physics and Earth System Sciences, Leipzig University, March 2025.

Clara Schüler (Minverva Fast Track Group “Milestones of Ealy Cognitive Development, MPI CBS Leipzig). Early precursors of Theory of Mind in the developing brain. Faculty of Life Sciences, Leipzig University, May 2025.

Patrick C. Trettenbrein (Dept. of Neuropsychology, MPI CBS Leipzig ). The neural basis of syntax is modality-independent: Evidence from functional magnetic resonance imaging with deaf signers. Faculty of Life Sciences, Leipzig University, May 2025.

Hongyan Zhao (RG “Pain Perception”, MPI CBS Leipzig). Non-invasive investigation of excitability changes in the human spinal cord. Faculty of Medicine, Leipzig University, May 2025.

Nele Hellbernd (Former Otto Hahn Group Neural Bases of Intonation in Speech and Music, MPI CBS Leipzig). Intentions in prosody: Investigations on expression, comprehension and neural bases of social intentions in speech. Faculty of Life Sciences, Leipzig University, June 2025.

Anna-Lena Tebbe (Minverva Fast Track Group “Milestones of Ealy Cognitive Development, MPI CBS Leipzig). Cognitive and neural mechanisms of perspective taking - Characterizing altercentric influences in infants and adults. Faculty of Life Sciences, Leipzig University, June 2025.

Our alumni Malte Brammerloh was awarded the Ernst Prize of the Magnetic Resonance Working Group of the German Chemical Society (GDCh) for his work on the in situ magnetometry of dopaminergic neurons. more

The former IMPRS NeuroCom PhD candidate Katharina Menn received two awards for her brilliant dissertation project: First, the Outstanding Dissertation Award of the International Society for Infant Studies and second, the 2024 Dissertation Award of the Society for the Neurobiology of Language, generously sponsored by the journal Brain and Language. Congratulations!

Every year, the Max Planck Society honors young scientists with the Otto Hahn Medal for outstanding scientific achievements. This year, the IMPRS NeuroCom Alumni Rachel Zsido received one of the coveted awards. Congratulations!

Photo: © David Ausserhofer for Max Planck Society

Florian M. Bednarski (Minverva Fast Track Group “Milestones of Ealy Cognitive Development, MPI CBS Leipzig & Leipzig University). Development of infants’ psychological agency. An interdisciplinary exploration. Faculty of Social Sciences and Philosophy, Leipzig University, January 2024.

Alessandro Braga (Institute of Biology, Leipzig University). An EEG investigation of sound source elevation processing and prediction in mice. Faculty of Life Sciences, Leipzig University, February 2024.

Matteo Maran (Dept. of Neuropsychology, MPI CBS Leipzig). Syntax through the looking glass: An empirical and theoretical study of the neurocognitive basis of two-word syntactic composition. Leipzig University, February 2024.

Dimitrios G. Gkoutsilias (NMR Group, MPI CBS Leipzig). MRI-based investigations of brain tissue magnetic susceptibility and application to the study of Tourette syndrome pathophysiology. Leipzig University, March 2024.

Daniel Haenelt (Dept. of Neurophysics, MPI CBS Leipzig). On the mapping of cortical columns in humans using high-resolution functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging. Leipzig University, March 2024.

Katharina Menn (RG “Language Cycles” & Dept. of Neuropsychology, MPI CBS Leipzig). Neuro-electrophysiological shaping of early language acquisition: A naturalistic approach. Leipzig University, March 2024.

Sarah A. Roesch (Dept. of Neurology, MPI CBS Leipzig). Neurobehavioral correlates and mechanisms underlying neurofeedback for binge-eating disorder. Leipzig University, May 2024.

Giorgio Papitto (Dept. of Neuropsychology, MPI CBS Leipzig). The distinctive function of Brodmann Area 44 in the neural networks of action and its segregation from language. Leipzig University, June 2024.

Natalie Kohler (OHG "Intonation in Speech and Music", MPI CBS Leipzig). Self and other in joint action - Neurocognitive insights into anticipation and adaptation in piano duos. Leipzig University, July 2024.

Julia Belger (Dept. of Neurology, MPI CBS Leipzig). Immersive virtual reality in neuropsychological rehabilitation. Leipzig University, August 2024.

Alexander Nitsch (Dept. of Psychology, MPI CBS Leipzig). Mapping memories and values for decision making. Leipzig University, August 2024.

Ann-Kristin Meyer (Dept. of Neurology, MPI CBS Leipzig). Tracking the impact of memory suppression on individual memory reresentations. Leipzig University, November 2024.

Devi Ratnamanjury (NMR Group, MPI CBS Leipzig). Magnetic resonance investigations of physiological effects related to functional inhibition. Leipzig University, November 2024.

Anna U. Rysop (RG Cognition and Plasticity, MPI CBS Leipzig). Modulating neural network dynamics of speech comprehension in challenging listening conditions. Leipzig University, December 2024.

Philip Ruthig (Dept. of Neuropsychology, MPI CBS Leipzig & Leipzig University). Lateral specializations of microanatomy in the mammalian auditory cortex. Faculty of Life Sciences, Leipzig University, February 2023.

Rachel Zsido (Dept. of Neurology, MPI CBS Leipzig). Sex hormone fluctuations and brain architecture across the female lifespan. Leipzig University, February 2023.

Tilmann Stephani (Dept. of Neurology, MPI CBS Leipzig). On the organization of neural response variability: Probing somatosensory excitability dynamics with oscillatory brain states and stimulus-evoked potentials. Leipzig University, April 2023.

Hsing-Fen Tu (Dept. of Neurology, MPI CBS Leipzig). The longitudinal investigation of infants’ attentional control and its associations with self-regulatory functions in toddlerhood and maternal mental distress. Medical Faculty, Leipzig University, July 2023.

Wei Xuehu (Dept. of Neuropsychology, MPI CBS Leipzig). Neuroplasticity in second language acquisition. Faculty of Life Sciences, Leipzig University, November 2023.

Malte Brammerloh (Dept. of Neurophysics, MPI CBS Leipzig). Iron-induced transverse relaxation in the substantia nigra: Toward a biomarker of dopaminergic neurons. Leipzig University, December 2023.

Yulia Lamekina (Dept. of Neuropsychology, MPI CBS Leipzig). The role of prosodic entrainment in subsequent sentence comprehension. Faculty of Life Sciences, Leipzig University, December 2023.

Hanna Ringer (Institute of Biological Psychology, Leipzig University). Memory for acoustic patterns: Behavioural and EEG evidence for flexible perceptual learning across varying listening contexts. Faculty of Life Sciences, Leipzig University, December 2023.

Pei-Ju Chien (Lise Meitner Group “Cognition and Plasticity”, MPI CBS Leipzig). Neural bases of linguistic pitch in a tonal language: Intonation, lexical tone, and the role of language experience. Faculty of Life Sciences, Leipzig University, June 2022.

Ruxue Gong (Clinic of Neurology, University Hospital Leipzig and Methods Group “Brain Networks”, MPI CBS Leipzig). β-γ phase-amplitude coupling derived from non-invasive electroencephalogram – insight into the pathophysiology of Parkinsons´s disease. Faculty of Medicine, Leipzig University, June 2022.

Eoin N. Molloy (Dept. of Neurology, MPI CBS Leipzig). Responses to one-week administration of escitalopram. Faculty of Medicine, Leipzig University, June 2022.

Merve Kaptan (RG “Pain Perception”, MPI CBS Leipzig). Neuroimaging of the human spinal cord at 3 Tesla: Investigation of acquisition and denoising strategies through resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging. Faculty of Life Sciences, Leipzig University, July 2022.

Philipp C. Paulus (RG “Adaptive Memory”, MPI CBS Leipzig). Schema and value: characterizing the role of the rostral and ventral medial prefrontal cortex in episodic future thinking. Faculty of Life Sciences, Leipzig University, July 2022.

Lara M.C. Puhlmann (RG “Social Stress and Family Health”, MPI CBS Leipzig). From mind to body: effects of contemplative mental training on biomarkers of stress-related disease risk. Faculty of Life Sciences, Leipzig University, July 2022.

Astrid Graessner (Lise Meitner Group “Cognition and Plasticity”, MPI CBS Leipzig). The neural correlates of basic semantic composition. Faculty of Life Sciences, Leipzig University, September 2022.

Mina Jamshidi Idaji (Dept. of Neurology, MPI CBS Leipzig). New machine learning methods for modeling nonlinear interactions in neural data, Towards separation and detection of genuine cross-frequency synchronized sources. Faculty of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, Technische Universität Berlin, September 2022.

Roman Linz (RG “Social Stress and Family Health”, MPI CBS Leipzig). Investigating mind-brain-body interactions within the multi­ systemic phenomenon of stress. Faculty of Life Sciences, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, October 2022.

Johannes Waschke (HTWK Leipzig and Faculty for Mathematics and Computer Sciences, Leipzig University). Trajectory data analysis in biomedical applications, Leipzig University.

Maria Stuckenberg (née Erfort) (Institute of Psychology, Dept. of Cognitive incl. Biological Psychology, Leipzig University). Preceding visual information modulates auditory information
processing: A crossmodal prediction view.
Leipzig University, 11 March.

Blazej Baczkowski: Inferring risk in the absence of threat: on the interaction of Pavlovian threat memory with preexisting knowledge of environmental structure. Leipzig University, 7 May.

Sabine Oligschlaeger: Gradients of connectivity distance in the primate cerebral cortex. Leipzig University, 14 May.

Maria Bloechl-Sevinchan: Situating determinant of mental health and wellbeing during ageing within a lifespan perspective. University of Muenster, 21 September.

Richard Gast: Phase transitions between asynchronous and synchronous neural dynamics:
Theoretical insight into the mechanisms behind neural oscillations in Parkinson’s disease. Leipzig University, 20 October.

Benjamin Kalloch: Towards individualized transcranial electric stimulation therapy through computer simulation. Leipzig University.

Pei-Cheng Shih: Bilateral upper-limb coordination in aging and stroke. Leipzig University, December 2021.

Ole Bialas (Institute of Biology, Leipzig University). An electroencephalographic investigation of elevation encoding in the human auditory system. Leipzig University, December 2021.

For his paper on "Measuring the iron content of dopaminergic neurons in substantia nigra with MRI relaxometry" published in NeuroImage 239, IMPRS NeuroCom Phd student Malte Brammerloh from the Neurophysics department was awarded the third prize at this year's Gorter Awards.  The prizes go to the best current works of young scientists in the field of biomedical magnetic resonance and were awarded at the DSISMRM meeting in Zürich.

Congratulations!

Vincent Ka Ming Cheung (Dept. of Neuropsychology, MPI CBS). "The neurocognitive basis of musical expectancy and pleasure: A Computational modelling approach ".
Leipzig University, 10 December.

Roman Linz (RG Stress and Family Health, MPI CBS). "Investigating mind-brain-body interactions within the multi­systemic phenomenon of stress".
Humboldt University Berlin, 30 October.

Lina Schaare (Dept. of Neurology, MPI CBS) .“Blood Pressure and Brain Structure in Early Adulthood”.
Leipzig University, 23 July .

Ting Qi (Dept. of Neuropsychology, MPI CBS): “The brain structure during language development. Neural correlates of sentence comprehension in preschool children”. 
Leipzig University, 04 June.

Miriam Langeloh (MPRG Early Social Cognition, MPI CBS ). “Why do infants imitate selectively? Neural correlates of infants' action understanding in the head-touch paradigm”. Heidelberg University, 03 April.

Shih-Cheng (Vincent) Chien (RG Brain Networks, MPI CBS). " Brain Network Dynamics in Deviance Response and Auditory Perception".  
Ilmenau University of Technology, 28 February.

Tommaso Ballarini (Dept. of Neurology, MPI CBS): "Magnetic Resonance Imaging Biomarkers for Clinical Symptoms and Therapy in Parkinson's disease”. 
Leipzig University, 24 February.

 
In the context of the New Year’s reception of the Research Academy Leipzig two IMPRS Alumna were awarded with prices for their doctoral dissertation:
Dr Caroline Beese received the dissertation award of the graduate center Life Sciences for her dissertation on “The Effects of Neurocognitive Aging on Sentence Processing”. Dr Maryna Polyakova received the Katharina Windscheid award for her dissertation “Searching for pathomechanisms of late life minor depression – a combined MRI, biomarker and meta-analytic study”. Congratulations!

 
Franziska Albrecht (Dept. of Neurology, MPI CBS) defended her dissertation " Neural Correlates of Parkinsonian Syndromes” at Leipzig University.

Caroline Beese (Dept. of Neuropsychology, Leipzig University) defended her thesis "The Effects of Neurocognitive Aging on Sentence Processing " at Leipzig University.
 
Leon Kroczek (Dept. of Neuropsychology, MPI CBS)
defended his dissertation ”The impact of speaker information on language processing” at Leipzig University.


Congratulations and all the best for your future careers!!!!

 
Samyogita Hardikar (Dept. of Neurology, MPI CBS) defended her dissertation "Taste perception in Obesity” at Leipzig University.

Maryna Polyakova (Dept. of Neurology, MPI CBS)
defended her dissertation "Searching for pathomechanisms of late life minor depression – a combined MRI, biomarker and meta-analytic study” at Leipzig University.

Mikaella Sarrou (Dept. of Neurobiologiy, Leipzig University) defended her thesis "Auditory motion: perception and cortical response" at Leipzig University.

Hanna Schleihauf (RG Early Social Cognition, MPI CBS)
defended her dissertation, "Why do we imitate nonsense? The underlying  motivations of overimitation" at Heidelberg University.

 
Congratulations to the four successful IMPRS alumni and all the best for your future careers!!!!

 
At the Annual General Meeting of the Max Planck Society on 13th June the Otto Hahn Medal  was awarded to IMPRS NeuroCom alumna Sofie Valk. Sofie also received the prestigious Otto Hahn Award. The Max Planck Society provides a small number of recipients of the Otto Hahn Medal each year with the opportunity, following on from a stay abroad, to head a small research group at a Max Planck Institute of their choice. Congratulations!

photograph: © Amac Garbe for Max Planck Society

 
As part of the Research Academy Leipzig’s Summer Festival, the doctoral prizes of the Graduate Centres were awarded. We are very pleased for Anna Marzecová, alumna of IMPRS NeuroCom, who was awarded the prize for the best doctoral dissertation in the field of life sciences. Congratulations!

 
Maria Guidi (NMR group) defended her dissertation "Depth-Dependent Physiological Modulators of the BOLD Response to the Human Motor Cortex” at Leipzig University.

Kathrin Lorenz (NMR group)
defended her dissertation, "Optimization of the labeling efficiency of pseudo-continuous arterial spin-labeling (pCASL) for the measurement of cerebral perfusion” at Leipzig University.

Anna-Lena Lumma (Dept. of Social Neuroscience) defended her thesis "The integration of first- and third-person methods in the context of meditation practices ond the self" at Leipzig University.

Riccardo Metere (NMR group)
defended his dissertation, "Investigating Brain Tissue Microstructure using Quantitative Magnetic Resonance Imaging" at Leipzig University.

Artyom Zinchenko (former research group “Subcortical Contributons to Understanding”) successfully defended his dissertation, "Prediction and control in multisensory emotion integration".
 
Congratulations!!!!

Dr Malte Wöstmann (Alumnus of IMPRS NeuroCom) was awarded the PhD prize from the Graduate Center for Life Sciences of the Research Academy, Leipzig. The award recognises outstanding dissertations created within the graduate centre classes. The award ceremony took place the the Annual Reception of the Research Academy.

 
Roberta Bianco (Dep. of Neurology and OHG "Intonation in Speech and Music" successfully defended her thesis "Principles of action planning in music production: evidence from fMRI and EEG studies" at the Medical Faculty of Leipzig University.

Ahmad Seif Kanaan (NMR group) successfully defended his dissertation "Elemental and neurochemical based analysis of the patophysiological mechanisms of Gilles de la Tourette Syndrome" at MH Hannover.

Congratulations!!!

 
On 26 September 2017 IMPRS NeuroCom’s spokesperson Prof. Arno Villringer welcomed 14 new PhD students to our graduate school. Before the official welcome our freshmen had a very interesting tour through the Wolfgang Koehler Research Centre at Leipzig Zoo. During the next three years they will now carry out their PhD projects at MPI CBS and Leipzig University.

Welcome to the Institute and to IMPRS NeuroCom!

In the first half of 2017 several former IMPRS NeuroCom PhD students successfully defended their PhDs:

Estrid Jacobsen (RG Connectivity): Sub-dividing Broca's region based on functional connectivity:
New methods for individual-level in vivo cortical parcellation

Seung-Goo Kim (MEG and Cortical Networks): Myeloarchitecture and Intrinsic Functional Connectivity of Auditory Cortex in Musicians with Absolute Pitch”

Anna Marzecová (Cognitive and Biological Psychology, Leipzig University): How prediction and attention jointly shape visual processing: A predictive coding view"

Claudia Roswandowitz (RG Human Communication): "Voice-Identity Processing. The Cognitive and Neural Mechanisms of Phonagnosia"

Sofie Valk (Dep. of Social Neuroscience): "The Structure of the Social Brain: Dissociating soci-affective and socio-cognitive networks through the study of individual differences, brain plasticity, and disease models."

Yaquiong Xiao (Dep. of Neuropsychology): "Resting-state functional connectivity in the brain and its relation to language development in preschool children"


Congratulations!!!

On 30 September 2016 we were happy to officially welcome 15 new PhD students to the IMPRS NeuroCom. The students from the latest cohort come from six different countries such as Armenia, Iran, Italy, Germany, Slovenia, and Taiwan. Most of them will be placed in departments and research groups at the MPI for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences and two of them will be placed at the University of Leipzig.

Andrea Reiter, IMPRS PhD student from the former Max Planck Fellow Group Cognitive and affective control of behavioural adaptation, successfully defended her thesis on "Out of control behaviors? Investigating mechanisms of behavioral control in alcohol addiction, binge eating disorder, and associated risk factors" with summa cum laude.


Congratulations Andrea!

At the meeting of the European Society for the Study of Tourette Syndrome (ESSTS) in Warschau, IMPRS NeuroCom PhD student Ahmad Seif Kanaan received the Professor Mary Robertson Award for his work titled: 'Pathological glutamatergic neurotransmission in Gilles de la Tourette Syndrome'.

Congratulations Ahmad!

Kathleen Krol, IMPRS PhD student from the former Research Group of Early Social Development, successfully defended her thesis on "Emotion perception in motherhood and infancy: The role of breastfeeding experience and the oxytocin system" with summa cum laude.
Kathleen directly moved to the US to take up a Post-Doc position in Tobias Grosmann's group at the Baby Lab in the Department of Psychology at the University of Virginia.



Congratulations to Katie and all the best for your future!!!