Optimal foraging behavior is a key component of successful adaptations to natural environments. Understanding how animals decide to stay near food or to leave it for another food patch gives us insights into the underlying cognitive mechanisms that govern adaptive behaviors.

On Tuesday, June 2, 2026, John Tuff successfully defended his PhD thesis entitled "The Action Control Network in the Avian Brain".

What happens in the human brain during extinction learning? A new study from SFB 1280 analyzed this with intracranial EEG recordings in epilepsy patients and revealed spectacular results.

We all know that physical inactivity isn’t good for our health and decreases affective well-being. But how does physical activity interact with affective well-being?

Can we predict from neural information the individual efficacy of fear learning, its extinction, and its renewal in humans? The answer is: Yes!

On Friday, December 12, 2025, Kevin Haselhuhn successfully defended his PhD thesis entitled "The Neuroarchitecture of the Avian Forebrain: Connections, Function, and Neurochemical Profile".

In extinction learning, a behaviour that was previously learned is extinguished when it no longer occurs in response to a target stimulus. However, laboratory research with non-human animals has revealed ‘paradoxes’ that consist of relapses or amplifications of the extinguished behaviour. 

The present observational study hypothesized that distinct profiles based on gaze behavior could be identified in humans and that these profiles would differ on addiction-related variables, such as alcohol consumption and impulsivity.

This review integrates animal and human evidence to examine how cue-triggered motivation and attention interact, and how these interactions are shaped by reward uncertainty, a dimension that has received limited interest in human research despite its robust effects in animals

Pigeons are powerful models for studying brain processes of learning and cognition. But up to now, researchers have lacked precise tools to investigate their brain activity in detail. Biopsychologists in Bochum are now changing that.