Models and interventions of cognition.

Translational Psychiatry - Aberrant insula activity to negative and reduced learning from positive feedback underlie maladaptive self-beliefs in depression

Mizrachi et al. show that directing attention to bodily sensations, rather than away, promotes more regulated acute inflammatory responses in healthy volunteers, revealing sensory and vagal pathways l...

Nature Neuroscience - Charbonneau et al. compare how the insula is structured and functions in humans, monkeys and rodents, revealing similarities and differences across species that are likely to...

The vagus nerve transmits vital signals between organ systems of the body and the brain. Despite growing interest in non-invasive transcutaneous vagus…

This review integrates computational approaches to provide a unified view on how data analysis methods, biophysical mechanistic models and machine learning approaches can help to uncover the origins a...

Which faculty members at the University of Osnabrück do their students consider deserving of an award? The jury has made its decision: On June 25, 2026, the Hans Mühlenhoff Prize for Excellence in Aca...

Perceptual multistability, observed across species and sensory modalities, offers valuable insights into numerous cognitive functions and dysfunctions. For instance, differences in temporal dynamics a...

Pavlovian approach–avoidance tendencies can disrupt flexible action control, but the causal contributions of specific neural regions remain unclear. This study shows that anterior insula stimulation r...

The CAMP Lab at the University of Iowa uses computational, neuroimaging, pharmacological, and neuromodulation approaches to understand motivation, affect, and decision-making — and how these processes...

Rewards play a crucial role in sculpting all motivated behavior. Traditionally, research on reinforcement learning has centered on how rewards guide l…

Neural responses during statistical learning reveal dissociable dynamic effects of expectation, supporting the opposing process theory within trials while demonstrating contrasting effects across tria...

How does the brain adjust its decision processes to ensure timely decision completion? Computational modelling and electrophysiological investigations have pointed to dynamic 'urgency' processes that serve to progressively reduce the quantity of evidence required to reach choice commitment as time e …

Gut-brain vagal signals gate dopamine ensembles, reshaping reward and motivation beyond a brain-centric view.

This study shows that non-invasive ultrasound to the human nucleus accumbens can modulate deep brain activity and enhance reward-guided learning, offering a potential alternative to invasive neuromodu...