Press releases

Alongside Alzheimer's disease, changes to the brain's vascular system are the most common cause of dementia. So-called white matter lesions are indications of tiny vascular damage in the brain and can be measured in an MRI scan. They are very common in older people and are linked, for example, to slower thinking in everyday life. Using data from over 2,800 study participants over the age of 65, Frauke Beyer from MPI CBS in Leipzig, Germany, and Stephanie Debette from the University of Bordeaux in France investigated where such lesions occur in the brain, which factors favour their occurrence and how they are linked to stroke and dementia.
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In his new science communication book, which will be published by mvg-Verlag on April 14, 2025, Michael Skeide sheds light on how brain research debunks the biggest misconceptions and how we can really learn better. more

Did you know that a woman’s heartbeat subtly changes across her menstrual cycle? These rhythmic changes, driven by hormonal fluctuations, offer a unique window into the intricate connection between the female brain and heart. In a new Paper published in Science Advances, Max Planck researchers Jellina Prinsen, Julia Sacher and Arno Villringer outline how these naturally occurring variations might influence stress, mood, and long-term cardiovascular and neurological health.
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The evolution of language in humans, in contrast to communicative systems in other primate species is hotly debated. Now, thanks to the study of brain connectivity between different primate species and by adopting a framework proposed for segregating functional language and communication activation in humans, Angela Friederici and Yannick Becker from MPI CBS argue in a recent correspondence article in Nature Reviews Neuroscience that the core language network can be neurally separated from other communication-relevant networks during primate evolution.
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Bin Wan and Sofie Valk from MPI CBS together with colleagues from Research Center Jülich, Montréal Neurological Institute and Hospital, and University of Cambridge describe in their recently published study in Nature Communications to what extend the anatomy of the human cortex is different between left and right, at the finest scale to date. Moreover, they describe that microstructural asymmetry of the brain is heritable and corresponds to asymmetry of brain function at rest. And they demonstrate to what extend individuals show differences in brain structure between the left and right hemispheres related to inter-individual variability in language-related skills such as reading and mental health, such as anxiety.
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Scientists at the Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences in Leipzig (MPI CBS) have developed a novel, non-invasive method to record electrical activity in the human spinal cord with high precision and sensitivity. The reactions of the spinal cord to pain stimuli can also be measured more accurately, which could open up new avenues for pain research and potential clinical applications. The study was recently published in the journal PLOS Biology.

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When we open our eyes, it is very easy for us to see the different objects, people and animals around us. Traditionally, the dominant view in research has been that a central goal of our perception is to recognize objects and assign them to different categories - for example, is this object we see a dog and do dogs belong to the category of animals. Researchers from the Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences in Leipzig and the Justus Liebig University Giessen in collaboration with the National Institutes of Health in the USA have now shown that this view is incomplete. In a recent study in the journal Nature Human Behaviour, they demonstrate that brain activity when seeing objects can be much better explained by a variety of behaviorally relevant dimensions.
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It is widely known in neuroscience that males have larger brains than females on average. However, how the brain differs functionally between the sexes is less well understood.
Based on the premise that brain structure supports function, Bianca Serio and Sofie Valk from MPI CBS in Leipzig and Forschungszentrum Jülich investigated whether sex differences in the functional organization of the brain could be explained by differences in brain size, brain  microstructure and the distance of functional connections along the cortical surface. Their results, recently published in the journal Nature Communications, suggest that sex differences in functional brain organization instead reflect small differences in functional networks and connections. In a second study published in Nature Communications, Svenja Küchenhoff from Sofie Valk's team was further able to show the extent to which sex hormones influence the structure of the brain.
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Mental illness often occurs for the first time during puberty and in young adulthood. This is because during adolescent brain development, a pronounced remodeling of cognitive networks takes place. On the one hand, this remodeling promotes the maturation of more complex cognitive functions and the ability to fit into the social environment. On the other hand, this developmental phase may be associated with greater instability and susceptibility to negative environmental influences, which can affect the mental health of adolescents. In a recent study in the journal Nature Communications, Meike Hettwer and Sofie Valk from the Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences in Leipzig and Forschungszentrum Jülich investigated how environmental risk factors - such as traumatic experiences and dysfunctional family settings - affect the mental health of 14- to 24-year-olds and how susceptibility to these factors can change within an individual over time.

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Every year, the Max Planck Society honors young scientists with the Otto Hahn Medal for outstanding scientific achievements. This year, Rachel Zsido from the Department of Neurology and Markus Frey from the Department of Psychology at the Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences (MPI CBS) received two of the coveted awards. Here they answer three questions about their research in a short interview.

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