How the brain forms long-term knowledge and skills

The DFG funds four more years of the Collaborative Research Center 1315 “Mechanisms and disturbances in Memory Consolidation: From Synapses to Systems”, coordinated by the HU, with partners at the Charité and several institutions.

From young zebra finches learning to sing from their fathers, to rodents that recognize patterns to find the route to a feeding station, and all the way to people memorizing words in the correct order, the same question applies: How the brain stores information and transforms it into long-term knowledge, attitudes, and skills. This is the focus of the Collaborative Research Center (CRC) “Mechanisms and Disturbances in Memory Consolidation: From Synapses to Systems,” which is based at the Institute of Biology at the Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin. It was recently announced that the German Research Foundation has extended its funding for another four years with a total of over 13 million euros. 

In its third and final funding phase, the CRC will continue to investigate the effects of sleep, aging, and conditions such as dementia and Alzheimer’s disease on memory. “What’s new is that we’re investigating metabolic processes and focusing more intensively on specific learning patterns across all projects,” says Matthew Larkum, Professor of Neural Plasticity at the Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin and Spokesperson for the CRC and NeuroCure PI. For example, how exactly is the recall of a sequence of words influenced by and reintegrated with one`s prior knowledge (“schema”). In different Charité - Universitätsmedizin subprojects, VR headsets will be used to simulate situations and study the memory performance of children and adults. 
Larkum cites that a key finding of phases 1 (2018-2022) and 2 (2022-2026) is that the crucial foundation for long-term memory of an event is laid shortly after it occurs: “This happens within the first 20 to 30 minutes. Our basic and clinical research projects have consistently demonstrated this - even if the learning process itself continues to be consolidated over days, weeks, or even years.”

The CRC investigates memory formation across species, in humans, birds, flies, rodents and bees. It combines molecular, cellular, network-based and behavioral approaches to uncover the dynamic development of memory, from the hippocampus to cortical integration. “This leads to an unusual interdisciplinary exchange,” emphasizes Matthew Larkum: “We have found that the molecular processes critical to memory consolidation can be observed in both flies and humans.”The CRC will consist of 16 research projects, as well as two service projects and two transfer projects. Forty-seven percent of the project leaders are women, and 13 percent are junior researchers. In addition to projects at the Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, the third funding round includes projects at the Charité–Universitätsmedizin Berlin, Max Delbrück Center for Molecular Medicine (MDC) Berlin-Buch, Deutsches Zentrum für Neurodegenerative Erkrankungen (DZNE) in Berlin and Magdeburg, FU Berlin, Goethe-Universität Frankfurt am Main, Leibniz Forschungsinstitut für Molekulare Pharmakologie (FMP), Leibniz-Institut für Neurobiologie (LIN) Magdeburg, Max-Planck-Institut für Bildungsforschung (MPIB Berlin), Max-Planck-Institut für Biologische Intelligenz (MPIBI Seewiesen), Otto-von-Guericke Universität Magdeburg, TU Berlin, Universitätsklinikum Bonn and Universitätsmedizin Greifswald.

Collaborative Research Centres

Collaborative Research Centres (SFBs) at Humboldt University of Berlin set innovative and structure-building priorities across various disciplines: They are long-term university research institutions, typically established for a period of up to twelve years, in which researchers collaborate within the framework of interdisciplinary research programs.

Source: Press Release HU

Further information

DFG Press Release

Collaborative Research Center 1315

Contact:
Prof. Matthew Larkum
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Dr. Mary Louise Grossmann
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