Cell assemblies (CAs) have been proposed as a model for the neural representation of objects and more abstract entities of thought in the brain. As such they ground psychological phenomena in neural structures (D. Hebb, The Organisation of Behaviour, 1949). CAs have been formalised as so-called associative memory models and intensively studied by many groups. They now provide one of the most successfull concepts of computational cognitive neuroscience.

We investigate how cell assemblies can interact in cortical large-scale multiple-area systems for sensory processing, decision making, and motor control. This covers mechanisms for hierarchical sensory processing and memory, spatio-temporal integration of distributed cortical activity, and the sequencing of motor behaviour.

Current research includes:

• Biologically realistic large-scale models of the visual pathway. This work is funded by the COLAMN and FACETS projects (see also our page on Visual Microcircuits)

• Neural models of language processing. This is work in collaboration with Friedemann Pulvermuller & Max Garagnani at the MRC Cognitive and Brain Science Unit, Cambridge.

• Models of sleep and wakefulness we study together with Eckehard Olbrich (Max Planck Institute for Mathematics in the Sciences, Leipzig) and Peter Achermann (University of Zurich). We are organising a high ranking internal Workshop about the topic in 2009, see MPIPKS .

• Selforganisation of the cortex as an information-theoretically optimal process. Nihat Ay (Max Planck Institute for Mathematics in the Sciences, Leipzig) and Peter Andras (University of Newcastle) collaborate with us on this topic.