RESEARCH INTERESTS
My research programs focus on the mechanisms through which memories can be formed and retrieved in the service of flexible, adaptive and goal-directed behavior. I investigate how the medial temporal lobe memory system interacts with prefrontal mechanisms of cognitive control. I also investigate how basal forebrain, striatal and dopaminergic midbrain regions modulate this prefrontal-mediotemporal interaction by prediction errors, anticipation, motivation and reward. This line of research integrates functional imaging, electrophysiology and magnetoencephalography with genetic and structural anatomical information as well as pharmacology.It is relevant for a better understanding of cognitive dysfunction in healthy aging as well as a number of neurological and neuropsychiatric conditions that my group studies such as amnesia and neurodegenerative diseases. My group closely collaborates with the Univ. of Magdeburg and the Magdeburg site of the German Center for Neurodegenerative Diseases.