Dirk Jancke (Bernstein Group Bochum, Ruhr Universität Bochum) is German coordinator of the new German-Israeli project "Decoding visual content and perception from neuronal population activity in visual cortex: VSDI, fMRI and computational modelling" (January 2012).

How does our brain construct a robust image from the plethora of light stimuli impinging onto the eye? In this complex process, widely branched networks of nerve cells are involved, whose cooperation is investigated in a new collaborative project carried out by researchers from Germany and Israel. The researchers combine functional magnetic resonance imaging with a novel imaging technique, that allows - thanks to light-emitting dyes - to track brain activity with high temporal and spatial resolution. Besides the group of Dirk Jancke, John-Dylan Haynes from the Bernstein Center and the Charite-Universitätsmedizin Berlin and Israeli research teams around Hamutal Slovin (Bar-Ilan University) and Shimon Ulman (Weizmann Institute of Science) participate in the project.

Starting in January 2012, the project is funded for five years by the Federal Ministry of Education and Research (Bundesministerium für Bildung und Forschung, BMBF) and the German Research Foundation (Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft, DFG) with around 1.55 million. It is financed within the funding program "German-Israeli Project Cooperation" ("Deutsch-Israelische Projektkooperation", DIP) that fosters interdisciplinary cutting-edge research in both countries.

Read more in the complete press release by the Ruhr Universität Bochum (in German).

• Dirk Jancke coordinates German-Israeli Cooperation