Press Releases

Persistent paralysis and coordination problems are among the most common consequences of a stroke. Scientists at the Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences in Leipzig (MPI CBS), the University Medical Center Halle, and the Charité-Universitätsmedizin in Berlin have discovered that brain stimulation helps. Direct current, applied via electrodes attached to the head, led to significant improvement of patients’ impaired movements. In addition to showing pronounced effects after a single application, the study suggests that the therapy may need to be individually tailored to specific patients for optimal benefit. more

Playing an instrument presents an enormous challenge for our brains. How exactly the brain masters the complex coordination tasks needed to meet that challenge is the subject of two new studies by scientists at the Max Planck Institute for Empirical Aesthetics in Frankfurt am Main (MPI AE) and the Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences in Leipzig (MPI CBS). In their open-access article, just published in the journal Cerebral Cortex, the researchers identify the region of the brain in which a musical idea becomes a finger movement during solo playing; and they show that when playing duets, the brains of both musicians must be on the same “wavelength.” more

Mental training that promotes skills such as mindfulness, gratitude or compassion reduces the concentration of the stress hormone cortisol in hair. This is what scientists from the Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences in Leipzig and the Social Neuroscience Research Group of the Max Planck Society in Berlin have found out. The amount of cortisol in hair provides information about how much a person is burdened by persistent stress. Earlier positive training effects had been shown in acutely stressful situations or on individual days - or were based on study participants’ self-reports. The current study thus provides the first objective evidence that mental training reduces physical signs of long periods of stress, even in healthy people. more

Smoking, high blood pressure, diabetes, and other risk factors for cardiovascular diseases also increase the likelihood of suffering from depressive mood or depression. Until now, however, it was unclear whether this influence changes over the course of life or is independent of age. A study by the Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences and the University of Münster shows: Among those over 65, these risk factors play a smaller role in relation to depression than among younger. more

Over 70 million deaf people around the world use one of more than 200 different sign languages as their preferred form of communication. Although they access similar structures in the brain as spoken languages, it has been difficult to identify the brain regions that process both forms of language equally. Scientists at the Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences (MPI CBS) have now discovered in a meta-analysis that Broca's area in the left hemisphere of the brain, which has already been shown to be the central hub for spoken languages, is also the crucial brain region for sign languages. This is where the grammar and meaning of language are processed, regardless of whether it is spoken or signed language. This shows that our brain is generally specialized in processing linguistic information. Whether this information is spoken or signed seems to be of secondary importance. more

Women are the majority of patients who are prescribed antidepressants – two out of three patients who have been prescribed a drug for depression are female. Some of these antidepressants are thought to help with motor recovery after stroke. While age-specific stroke rates are higher in men, women experience more frequent and more severe stroke events, and are less likely to recover. But in many pre-clinical trials it is still mainly male participants who are tested, although there is clear evidence of sex-specific differences in disease and the response to medication. In order to bridge this gap neuroscientists around Julia Sacher from the Max-Planck-Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences have tested 64 healthy women, to see how their brain reacts to the combination of motor learning while taking a common antidepressant. Surprisingly, and in contrast to previous clinical trials, they found no improvement in motor learning among the participants. more

The brain never processes the same information in the same way. Scientists at the Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences (MPI CBS) have found out why this is the case and how it works. A decisive role plays a critical state of the neuronal networks. more

Areas in the visual cortex of the brain, which process the same part of the visual field, are also more strongly interconnected more

Each year the Max Planck Society honours young scientists and researchers  with the Otto Hahn Medal for outstanding scientific achievements. This year, Leon Kroczek, former PhD student of IMPRS NeuroCom at the Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences (MPI CBS), won one of the prestigious awards. more

Why is it that people find songs such as James Taylor’s “Country Roads,” UB40’s “Red, Red Wine,” or The Beatles’ “Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da” so irresistibly enjoyable? In a study reported in the journal Current Biology on November 7, researchers analyze 80,000 chords in 745 classic U.S. Billboard pop songs—including those three—and find that musical pleasure comes from the right combination of uncertainty and surprise. more

Oxytocin is an extremely important hormone, involved in social interaction and bonding in mammals, including humans. It helps us relate to others. It strengthens trust, closeness in relationships, and can be triggered by eye contact, empathy, or pleasant touch. It's well known that a new mother's oxytocin levels can influence her behavior and as a result, the bond she makes with her baby. A new epigenetic study by Kathleen Krol and Jessica Connelly from the University of Virginia and Tobias Grossmann from the Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences now suggests that mothers' behavior can also have a substantial impact on their children's developing oxytocin systems. more

Babies seek to understand the world around them and learn many new things every day. Unexpected events – for example when a ball falls through a table – provide researchers with the unique opportunity to understand infants’ learning processes. What happens in their brains as they learn and integrate new information? Miriam Langeloh from the Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences, Moritz Köster from the Freie Universität Berlin, and Stefanie Höhl from the University of Vienna address that question in a new study with nine-month-old babies, published in Psychological Science. more

Telomeres are the protective caps of our chromosomes and play a central role in the ageing process. Shorter telomeres are associated with chronic diseases and high stress levels can contribute to their shortening. A new study now shows that if telomeres change in their length, that change is also reflected in our brain structure. This association was identified by a team of scientists including Lara Puhlmann and Pascal Vrtička from the Max Planck Institute for Cognitive Brain Sciences in Leipzig together with Elissa Epel from the University of California and Tania Singer from the Social Neuroscience Lab in Berlin as part of Singer’s ReSource Project. more

Rachel Zsido and Julia Sacher found that oestradiol plays a crucial role in keeping the structure of networks in the female brain structurally intact and the memory healthy, especially in mid-life. more

Roland Benoit and Philipp Paulus together with Daniel Schacter from Harvard University have examined the question, how neutral places suddenly become valuable to us, in a study published in the journal Nature Communications. They show that our attitudes can be influenced not only by what we actually experience but also by what we imagine. more

 For people in their 20s and 30s, having blood pressure above normal but below the level considered to be high blood pressure, may be linked to loss of brain more

At a mere five months of age, babies seemingly have the ability to recognize very complex grammatical structures. more

Infants’ attention to fearful faces predicts later altruism more

... Sofie Valk and Emiliano Zaccarella more

The equivalent of Broca’s area plays a similar role but for the processing of music instead of language. more