Cortico-basal ganglia mechanisms for overcoming prepotent behaviour (A02)

• Subject Area: Human Cognitive and Systems Neuroscience
• Term: from 2008 to 2019
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 36555331

Patients suffering from obsessive-compulsive-disorder (OCD) and addiction show a malfunctional dominance of habitual over goal-directed behaviour. Clinical data regarding therapeutic success and side-effects of DBS of the Nucleus subthalamicus (STN) and Nucleus accumbens (Nacc) are ambiguous, and clinical outcomes are difficult to predict. This is because the underlying physiological mechanisms and behavioural consequences of DBS at these target regions are poorly understood, in particular pertaining to the balance between habitual and goal-directed behaviour. In the present project we will systematically explore how the STN and Nacc contribute to habitual and goal-directed behaviour by recording LFPs selectively from the STN in PD patients as well as from the Nacc in two groups of patients whose impulse-control network is either deficient (OCD patients, addiction) or intact (epilepsy patients).

• DFG Programme: Collaborative Research Centres
• Subproject of: SFB 779: Neurobiology of Motivated Behaviour
• Applicant Institution: Otto-von-Guericke-Universität Magdeburg
• Co-Applicant Institution: Leibniz-Institut für Neurobiologie (LIN)
• Project Heads: Professor Dr. Emrah Düzel; Professor Dr. Hans-Jochen Heinze; Professor Tino Zaehle, Ph.D.