Sofie Valk and Daniel Reznik receive ERC Starting Grants

This year, the European Research Council (ERC) is funding projects by Sofie Valk (group leader at MPI CBS) and Daniel Reznik (postdoc at MPI CBS) with Starting Grants. This is the result of a Europe-wide call for proposals, to which 3,928 young researchers applied. The ERC Starting Grants are aimed at outstanding young scientists at the beginning of their independent careers. They will each receive funding of €1.5 million over the next five years.
 

As social isolation is becoming an increasing problem for public health, Sofie Valk's ERC project is investigating the extent to which our brains depend on social connections. Using state-of-the-art high-resolution MRI techniques, the researcher aims to show, at a level of detail never before achieved, how the structure and function of certain brain regions support social thinking and emotional understanding. “By analyzing large-scale datasets combining genetic data, MRI scans, and behavioral markers, we want to find out whether and how positive social environments strengthen these brain areas, while isolation weakens them,” explains Sofie Valk. Her planned studies aim to help explain why strong social bonds are essential for well-being and to provide new insights for the treatment of mental illnesses associated with social difficulties.

 

 

Daniel Reznik's project will investigate the developmental trajectory of the neural architecture that supports human memory and its breakdown in Alzheimer's disease (host institution DZNE Magdeburg). To this end, he plans to use individualized high-field neuroimaging to provide a biologically meaningful description of the organizational principles of the human hippocampal memory system and to highlight its fundamental aspects, such as functional organization, development, and pathology.