MindBrainBody Lecture Series

The MindBrainBody Lecture Series take place every 2^nd month virtually. The access link and details about the lectures will be given shortly before the date of the lecture. Everyone is invited to join virtually!

Upcoming MindBrainBody Lecture

July 23, 2026

Upcoming

Francesca Ferri | University of Chieti–Pescara, Chieti, Italy

23 July 2026 at 4pm

Zoom Link:
https://gwdg.zoom.us/j/82855697786?pwd=iABbntJ0GU4m6FLOGfq2iedOuDwfth.1
Meeting ID: 828 5569 7786 | Passcode: 470724

Title:
Breathing as a mechanism of adaptive Brain–Body communication

Abstract:
Breathing is increasingly recognized as more than a physiological process supporting metabolic demands. Growing evidence suggests that respiration actively shapes neural activity, perception, cognition, and behaviour, placing it at the centre of brain–body communication. Drawing on recent work from our laboratory, I will present a framework in which breathing acts as a flexible mechanism for coordinating internal bodily signals with changing environmental demands. Within this perspective, respiratory rhythms may influence how sensory and interoceptive information is weighted, how the organism adapts to stress, and how physiological processes support interpersonal attunement. By integrating evidence across perception, interoception, stress physiology, and social neuroscience, I will argue that respiration
provides a unique window into the mechanisms through which the brain continuously monitors, predicts, and regulates bodily states. Understanding these processes may offer new insights into adaptive functioning in both health and clinical conditions.

Keynote Speakers of MindBrainBody Lectures Series and MBB Symposium

Previous MindBrainBody Lecture Series

Date	Speaker	Title
21 May 2026	Agustín Ibáñez Universidad Adolfo Ibáñez Santiago, Chile	“Interoceptive links of whole-body health and the exposome in brain health”
19 May 2023	Patrick Haggard University College London, UK	“Somatosensory Qualities: Blix, Müller and beyond”
11 April 2022	Michael Pereira Laboratoire de Psychologie et NeuroCognition in Grenoble, France	“Computational mechanisms for perceptual consciousness and monitoring”
31 January 2022	Daniel S. Kluger University of Münster, Germany	“Human respiration, oscillations, and behaviour”
10 January 2022	Damián Dellavale Aix-Marseille Université, Marseille, France	“Cross frequency couplings in brain recordings and at the organism level using imaging photoplethysmography”
1 November 2021	Jean-Remi King École Normale Supérieure, Paris, France	“Towards a computational model of language processing in the adult human brain”
18 October 2021	Konstantina Kilteni Karolinska Institute, Sweden	“Somatosensory processing during action”
26 July 2021	Lucie Charles University College London, UK	“Metacognitive bias in perception of voluntary action”
12 July 2021	Francesca Fardo Aarhus University, Aarhus, Denmark	“Illusions in the thermo-nociceptive system”
10 May 2021	Jakub Limanowski TUD Dresden University of Technology, Dresden, Germany	“Precision control for a flexible visuo-proprioceptive body representation”
29 March 2021	Rochelle Ackerley Aix -Marseille University, Marseille, France	“How do you feel? The contribution of a single mechanoreceptive afferent to tactile sensation”
8 March 2021	James Kilner Institute of Neurology, London, UK	“The role of internal bodily signals in action and perception”
8 February 2021	Sophie Betka EPFL SV BMI LNCO, Genève, Switzerland	“The exploration of components of bodily self-consciousness, using mixed-reality”
25 January 2021	Micah Allen Aarhus University in Denmark	“Towards better interoceptive biomarkers in computational psychiatry”
21 December 2020	Joachim Lange Heinrich Heine University Düsseldorf	“The rhythms of temporal perception”
7 December 2020	Thomas Baumgarten Heinrich Heine University Düsseldorf, Düsseldorf, Germany	“Effects of intrinsic and extrinsic neural activity changes on stimulus processing and perception”
31 November 2020	Timo Stein University of Amsterdam, Amsterdam, the Nietherlands	“Measuring unconscious visual processing”
19 October 2020	Elena Azanon Gracia Otto von Guericke University, Magdeburg, Germany	“Location specificity of tactile distance aftereffects”
12 October 2020	Louise Kirsch ISIR, Sorbonne Universite, Paris, France; University College London, London, UK	“What’s so special about touch? A multidimensional approach to study social touch”
5 October 2020	Natalie Schaworonkow University of California - San Diego/USA	“Methodological aspects of analyzing neuronal rhythms in electrophysiological recordings”
28 September 2020	Niels Kloosterman UCL Centre for Computational Psychiatry and Ageing Research; Max Planck Institute for Human Development, Berlin, Germany	“How more unconstrained neural dynamics aid adaptive behaviour”
7 September 2020	Saskia Haegen Columbia University Medical Center, USA; Donders Centre for Cognitive Neuroimaging, the Netherlands	“Oscillatory building blocks underlying perception & cognition”
24 August 2020	Luke E. Miller Radboud University, Nijmegen, the Niederlands	“Tools extend the spatial coding of touch beyond the body”

MindBrainBody Symposium Keynote Lectures

Date	Speaker	Title
09-11 March 2026	Keynote Lectures of 13th MBB Symposium	MBB Symposium 2026 Booklet
	Karl Friston University College London, London, UK	“The physics of affordance”
	Sonja Kotz Maastricht University, Maastricht, the Netherlands	“A comparative and translational brain (-body) perspective on time and rhythm processing”
	Ulrike Bingel University Medicine Essen, Germany	“Mind over matter: how expectations shape health and treatment outcomes”
	Tina Lonsdorf Bielefeld University, Bielefeld, Germany	“Early Adversity, Learning, and neuronal circuits underlying responses to environmental threat signals”
	Julian Thayer University of California/Irvine, USA	“Breathing is Fundamental: A Mind/Brain/Body Perspective”
10-12 March 2025	Keynote Lectures of 12th MBB Symposium	MBB Symposium 2025 Booklet
	Tor D. Wager Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire	“A neuroscientific perspective on the self-regulation of pain and emotion”
	Nadine Gogolla Max Planck Institute of Psychiatry, Munich, Germany	“Interoceptive cardiac signals guide emotion state coding in the mouse posterior insular cortex”
	Markus Ullsperger Otto-von-Guericke University, Magdeburg	“Neuro- and psychophysiology of performance monitorin”
	Maria J. Ribeiro University of Coimbra	“The psychophysiology of temporal attention”
	Veronica Witte Leipzig University Clinic; Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences, Leipzig, Germany	“Exploring the impact of the gut-brain axis on cognitive aging and decision-making”
	Ivan de Araujo Max Planck Institute for Biological Cybernetics, Tübingen, Germany	“Brain-Body Regulation of Musosal Immunity”
11-13 March 2024	Keynote Lectures of 11th MBB Symposium	MBB Symposium 2024 Booklet
	Karin Roelofs Radboud University Nijmegen, Nijmegen, the Nederlands	“Human defensive reactions and their role in decision making”
	Patrick Haggard University College London, London, UK	“Freedom, autonomy and responsibility: what can neuroscience tell us?”
	Christian Büchel Universitätsklinikum Hamburg-Eppendorf, Hamburg, Germany	“How agency, control and expectations modulate pain”
	Siri Leknes University of Oslo, Oslo, Norway	“Pain, pleasure and drug effects in the human brain”
	Jonathan Smallwood Queen's University, Kingston, UK & Samyogita Hardikar Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences, Leipzig, Germany	“States of mind and brain”
11-13 March 2023	Keynote Lectures of 10th MBB Symposium	MBB Symposium 2023 Booklet
	Anil K. Seth University of Sussex, Brighton, UK	“From beast machines to dreamachines”
	Frederike Petzschner Brown University, Providence, RI, USA	“On the physiological basis of reward and punishment”
	Stephanie R. Jones Brown University, Providence, RI, USA	“Interpreting the mechanisms and meaning of brain rhythms in somatosensation using the Human Neocortical Neurosolver (HNN) modeling software”
	Matthew Larkum Humboldt Universität zu Berlin, Berlin, Germany	“The Dendritic Integration Theory of Consciousness”
	György Buzsáki New York University, New York, USA	“Ways to Think About the Brain: Emergence of cognition from action”
16-18 March 2022	Keynote Lectures of 9th MBB Symposium	MBB Symposium 2022 Booklet
	Olaf Blanke Center for Neuroprosthetics EPFL, Geneva, Switzerland	“Brain mechanisms of invisible presences”
	Beatrice de Gelder Maastricht University, Maastricht, The Netherlands	“How body expressions signal threat in real and virtual worlds”
	Sahib S. Khalsa University of Tulsa, Tulsa, OK, USA	“Interoception and mental health: towards an integrated understanding of mind body and brain interaction”
	Aikaterini (Katerina) Fotopoulou University College London (UCL), London, UK	“Social Embodied Cognition and Metacognition in Health and Disease”
	Rebecca Böhme Linköping University, Linköping, Sweden	“Social Touch - a Foundation of the Self”
15-18 March 2021	Keynote Lectures of 8th MBB Symposium	MBB Symposium 2021 Booklet
	Soyoung Q Park Charité – Universitätsmedizin Berlin, Berlin; German Institute for Human Nutrition, Potsdam, Germany	“Motives and modulators of human decision making”
	Beatrice de Gelder Maastricht University, Maastricht, the Nederlands	“From feelings to features. A different approach to body processing and the neural basis of emotions”
	Gaetano Valenza University of Pisa, Pisa, Italy	“Functional Brain-Heart Interplay: Signal Processing Methodology and Future Perspectives”
	Tobias Heed Bielefeld University, Bielefeld, Germany	“Mechanisms of tactile-motor integration”
	Satu Palva University of Helsinki; University of Glasgow	“Large-scale brain networks in cognition”
18-19 March 2019	Keynote Lectures of 7th MBB Symposium	MBB Symposium 2019 Booklet
	Noam Sobel Weizmann Institute of Science, Rehovot	“Blood, Sweat and Tears: Human Social Chemosignals in Health and Disease”
	Bigna Lenggenhager University of Zurich, Zurich, Switzerland	“Losing touch with your body: the plasticity of the bodily self and the feeling of disownership”
	Gianna Cocchini Goldsmiths, University of London, London, UK	“Anosognosia for motor and cognitive deficits: A multifactorial syndrome underlying different mechanisms”
	Megan Peters University of California, Riverside, CA, USA	“The computations and neural correlates of subjective perceptual experiences”
15-16 March 2018	Keynote Lectures of 6th MBB Symposium	MBB Symposium 2018 Booklet
	Wolfgang Prinz Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences, Leipzig, Germany	“Bewusstsein erklären: Wie geht das? What it takes to explain consciousness”
	Catherine Tallon-Baudry École Normale Supérieure (ENS), Paris, France	“Visceral inputs, brain dynamics and subjectivity”
	Melanie Wilke German Primate Center (DPZ) and University of Göttingen, Göttingen, Germany	“Disentangling conscious perception from decision making and visuomotor processes”
	Carsten Finke Charité – Universitätsmedizin Berlin, Berlin, Germany	“Memory disorders in the young - function and dysfunction of the NMDA receptor”
16-17 March 2017	Keynote Lectures of 5th MBB Symposium	MBB Symposium 2017 Booklet
	Sarah N Garfinkel University of Sussex, Brighton, UK	“What the heart remembers: body-brain mechanisms of emotion and memory”
	Giandomenico Iannetti University College London (UCL), London, UK	“Avoiding injury: brain responses to sudden stimuli and defensive agency”
	Andrea Serino University of Lausanne (UNIL), Lausanne, Switzerland	“Peripersonal space as a multisensory-motor interface between the individual and the environmen”
15-16 March 2016	Keynote Lectures of 4th MBB Symposium	MBB Symposium 2016 Booklet
	Eckart Altenmüller Hannover University of Music, Drama and Media (HMTMH), Hannover, Germany	“Apollos Gabe: Musikwirkungen auf Denken, Fühlen und auf Emotionen”
	Isabel Dziobek Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, Berlin, Germany	“New Insights into the Plasticity of Social Cognition and the Social Brain”
	Felix Blankenburg Freie Universität Berlin, Berlin, Germany	“The Body, the Self and the “Free Energy Principle”
	Felix Hasler Berlin School of Mind and Brain, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, Berlin, Germany	“Why Depression is Not ‘Just Like Diabetes’. Promises and Disappointments of Biological Psychiatry”
19-20 March 2015	Keynote Lectures of 3rd MBB Symposium	MBB Symposium 2015 Booklet
	Veronika Engert Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences, Leipzig, Germany	“Ist Stress ansteckend? Stress-Reaktivität im Sozialen Kontext”
	Talma Hendler Tel Aviv University, Tel Aviv, Israel	“From fMRi to EEG and Back”
	Dr. Hadas Okon-Singer University of Haifa, Haifa, Israel	“Factors modulating our reaction to aversive stimuli: The influence of attention and personality”
	Annette Brose Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, Berlin, Germany	“Capturing Life as it is Lived: An Introduction to Ambulatory Assessment and the Sample Case of Measuring Daily Affective Experiences”
11-12 March 2014	Keynote Lectures of 2nd MBB Symposium	MBB Symposium 2014 Booklet
	Felix Bermpohl Charité – Universitätsmedizin Berlin, Berlin, Germany	“Shine – Der Weg ins Licht“ Movie Discussion
	Niko Busch Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, Berlin, Germany	“Using psychophysical modeling to study the interaction of spontaneous EEG oscillations and perception”
	Jonas Obleser Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences, Leipzig, Germany	“The listening brain”
13-14 March 2013	Keynote Lectures of 1st Mind-Brain Symposium	MBB Symposium 2013 Booklet
	Katharina von Kriegstein Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences, Leipzig, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, Berlin, Germany	“How we hear with our visual system”
	Julia Sahcer Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences, Leipzig, Germany	“More than just the blues: Imaging studies of the female human brain postpartum”
	Tamer Demiralp Istanbul University, Istanbul, Turkey	“ERP/ERO correlates of subjective confidence level about a decision”