DFG approves new project:New asset for the Collaborative Research Centre 874

PD Dr. Burkhard Pleger studies tactile learning

The Collaborative Research Centre 874 “Integration and Representation of Sensory Processes” at Ruhr University Bochum is investigating how sensory signals generate neuronal maps and result in complex behavior and memory formation. Since 2010 the work of the interdisciplinary team of scientists is being funded by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG). Recently the DFG approved a new project, which is led by PD Dr. Burkhard Pleger. The new project is entitled “Predictive coding for tactile detection and tactile learning”.

Since 2016 Burkhard Pleger has been at the Neurological Clinic at the University Clinic Bergmannsheil. In the new CRC 874 project he is going to investigate a crucial part of our learning system: the sensory prediction error. He intends to test how the brain of healthy participants reacts, when their tactile senses make a mistake by using magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). Such errors do often occur, because the brain constantly makes predictions about our surroundings and compares them to the reality. The mismatch between the prediction and the real sensory perception is the prediction error. This is an important evaluation process in the brain and it is crucial for sensory perception and tactile training and learning. Pleger wants to explore this process using the example of the tactile sense.