LSA Fellows 6

The ability to adapt to changing environmental conditions is a key feature of the human brain. However, insights that provide us with clear guidelines on how to behave (or what environmental conditions to expose ourselves to) in order to optimally adapt to changing environmental or bodily conditions are sparse.

Here, I propose to develop a new product that induces layer-specific plasticity in the human cortex. Similar like the skin, the human cortex is composed of different layers that each subserve different functions. Which layer changes in which condition, however, remains at present unclear mainly because neuroscience research has for a long time been limited by the relatively low spatial resolution of brain images. By linking behavioral gain to layer-specific changes in the topographic architecture of the human brain, the proposed project will use state-of-the-art technology to gain key and novel insights into brain-behavior relationships and their change over time. The product that will be developed in the course of the project to induce the changes will be made available to the general public in the future.