RESEARCH CENTER NEUROSENSORY SCIENCE
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RESEARCH CENTER NEUROSENSORY SCIENCE
General Information about the Research Center Neurosensory Science
The Research Center Neurosensory Science (RCNS) is an independent, cross-faculty scientific institution. It sees itself as an umbrella organization for the over 40 research groups that have established themselves in the various areas of neural sensory technology over the past 20 years since the Research Center was founded. The RCNS bundles the interdisciplinary activities of currently 77 experienced researchers and also takes an active role in promoting young scientists. The Research Center supports the networking of members across faculty boundaries and thus promotes the realization of joint proposals.
The RCNS forms the bridge between medicine (University Medicine Oldenburg, Faculty VI), the natural sciences (Faculty V) and the local clinics in the field of sensory neuroscience.
From sensory organ to perception
Aims
The Research Center Neurosensory Science wants to find answers to these and similar questions:
- How do the images get into our heads or the music get into our ears?
- How do our ears manage to perceive and pass on the information that is relevant to us from a huge amount of noise?
- How does chronic pain change our brain?
- How do birds and fish orient themselves?
The Research Center wants to contribute to this:
- Clarification of the processes by which our brain creates an internal picture of the world around us based on the messages from our sensory organs
- Understand processes that create the first sensory building blocks in the sensory organs from the flood of sensory impressions and processes that use them to construct a perception in the brain.
The Research Center Neurosensory Science is characterized by:
- Interdisciplinary composition - neurobiologists, biologists, psychophysicists, doctors, psychologists and biochemists work together
- Modern techniques - from molecular biology to optogenetics and imaging methods (neuroimaging, next generation sequencing, etc.) to algorithm development - are used
- Contemporary infrastructure - the latest research equipment (e.g. Leica TCS STED CW, MRT, MEG), modern laboratories, neurosensory research building and safety-critical systems (NeSSy-Building)
Impulses
The RCNS supports the networking of researchers across faculty boundaries and promotes the realization of joint collaborative proposals:
- Cluster of Excellence „Hearing for all”
- Promoting young talent: DFG-GRK “Neuromodulation of motor and cognitive functions in the healthy and diseased brain”
- Third-party funding applications from the DFG (currently SFB “Hearing Acoustics: Perceptive Principles, Algorithms and Applications – HAPPAA” and SFB “Magnetoreception and Navigation in Vertebrates: from Biophysics to Brain and Behavior”) and the EU
- Application-oriented projects such as the network for multilingual hearing and speech intelligibility diagnostics Methods/devices - STED microscope, MRI/MEG
Collaboration
Scientists from various disciplines (e.g. neurobiology, psychophysics, psychology, acoustics, biochemistry, neurogenetics, medicine and engineering) are working together to elucidate the processes through which our brain forms an internal image of the... the world around us. This is about processes that create the first sensory building blocks in the sensory organs from the flood of sensory impressions and the processes that use this to construct a perception in the brain. Particular attention is paid to the investigation of interactions between different sensory impressions. In keeping with the interdisciplinary composition of the research center, a range of modern techniques are used, ranging from molecular biology to imaging techniques to algorithm development.
In recent years, over 40 working groups have been established at the University of Oldenburg in the various areas of neural sensor technology. The Neurosensory Research Center sees itself as an umbrella organization for these groups. It brings together the interdisciplinary activities of the various working groups and also takes an active role in promoting collaboration with non-university institutions. An important task of the center is to promote young scientists and further training in the relevant research areas.
In order to strengthen interdisciplinary research work, the Neurosensory Research Center was restructured in 2014 - five sections were created that are dedicated to thematic focus areas within neurosensory science at the University of Oldenburg.
Sensory Neuroscience as a Research Focus at the University of Oldenburg
Based on criteria that have emerged as national and international evaluation standards, the University of Oldenburg has set the following main topics for it´s research and teaching:
"Environment and Sustainability",
"Humans and Technology" and
„Society and Education”.
The main topic “People and Technology” combines the focus areas “Hearing Research”, “Cooperative Critical Systems”, “Sensory Neuroscience” and “ Health Care systems and Patient- Centredness".
“Sensory Neuroscience” is one of a total of eleven research and teaching focuses at the University of Oldenburg.
Spokespersons for the research focus on „Sensory Neuroscience” are: