Unraveling the mysteries of the human mind requires a leap in technology. Today advances in functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI) are pioneered in animals. Not only should animal experiments be avoided where possible, animal fMRI experiments are also difficult to control, rich in physiologically noise, and offer limited opportunity for simultaneous ground truth measurements. To accelerate the development of the technology needed to understand the human brain, we will create a new research platform to discover, validate, and optimize new fMRI techniques using state-of-the-art brain tissue cultures, called brain organoids.

Brain rhythms: the building blocks of the brain Dr. S. Haegens, Radboud University Nijmegen — Donders Institute for Brain, Cognition and Behaviour Every day, our brains receive an enormous amount of information, which needs to be filtered and processed. To accomplish this, it is crucial to connect the right brain areas at the right moment. The researchers will study how brain rhythms organize this.

In our everyday life our brain is constantly bombarded with sensory information. Since only a small amount of this information is directly relevant for our behaviour, we have to select the relevant and ignore irrelevant incoming information. The combination of new neuroimaging techniques holds the promise of advancing our understanding of how the stream of incoming information is routed through the human brain. This project entails an integrated analysis of data from multiple neuroimaging techniques. This is in particular needed in the quest to understand the role of sub-cortical structures and the role of layer specific computations. I will integrate data from simultaneously recorded EEG and (high and normal resolution) fMRI with information about anatomical connections between brain regions obtained from diffusion tensor imaging (DTI). By recording these different types of data during, and in relation to a task in which subjects have to attend to information in one sensory modality, while ignoring information in another sensory modality, I try to answer the following questions: (I) Which brain networks provide top-down control and through which mechanisms do they influence the information flow in earlier sensory brain regions? (II) How is the layer specific information flow between early and later sensory regions controlled by top-down control? (III) Are there direct anatomical connections between cortical control networks, or are they mediated through other, possibly sub-cortical, brain regions? (IV) Do the same attentional networks modulate information processing in different sensory modalities, or are there sensory specific networks? This project will therefore address both anatomical and functional aspects of how routing of information in the working brain is controlled. It therefore will provide knowledge that is essential for our understanding when attentional control fails, like for instance in individuals with ADHD who have pervasive difficulties in maintaining focussed attention, and ignoring irrelevant information.

We have shown that rhythmic activity in brain regions influences the response of these brain areas to new information. We have also shown that synchronization of these rhythms between brain regions is relevant for the processing of information in the network of cooperating brain areas. The speed of the synchronized rhythms is related to the nature of the connection between the brain areas involved.

The modulatory neurotransmitter dopamine is involved in a wide range of psychiatric and neurological disorders (Parkinson?s disease (PD), drug addiction, schizophrenia, ADHD) as well as normal brain states (stress, fatigue). Evidence from manipulations of dopamine levels in patients and healthy subjects suggest that key to this are opposite effects of dopamine on reward- and punishment-based learningAccording to current ideas, these opposite effects reflect dopaminergic modulation of distinct frontostriatal pathways: dopamine levels in the basal ganglia (BG) serve as a dynamic threshold to facilitate or suppress actions considered by different parts of the prefrontal cortex via an excitatory (Go) and an inhibitory (NoGo) pathway. My aim is to assess this postulated but never directly tested suggestion that the striatum acts as a gateway in the translation of motivational environmental cues (predicting rewards and punishments) into behavioural activation (or inhibition). Specifically, my key objectives are to 1) Determine the influence of dopamine levels on frontostriatal coupling during the interaction of motivation and action 2) Establish the functional gateway via which the BG modulate cortical processing, using the rare opportunity to directly measure striatal neural activity in humans. To assess the gating function of the striatum in cortical connectivity, I will a state of the art multidisciplinary approach using combining computational modelling, functional magnetic resonance imaging, pharmacology and intracranial and cortical recordings of neural activity in patients. This body of work will furnish a unique insight into the working of the frontostriatal network and the role of dopamine therein.