SFB 1451:  Key mechanisms of motor control in health and disease

• Subject Area: Medicine ; Biology ; Social and Behavioural Sciences
• Term: since 2021
• Website: Homepage
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 431549029

The motor system enables us to interact with the environment. The variety of motor activity reaches from “simple” monosynaptic reflexes to complex behaviour, e.g., object manipulation, all relying on an intense interplay of neurons and muscles. If successful, motor control, i.e., the neural mechanisms that allow muscle activation in a coordinated and meaningful way, ensures the stability and integrity of the body in its environment. In comparison to sensory, cognitive, or affective-emotional systems, the motor system’s output is directly quantifiable and comparable across species. When studying the neural mechanisms underlying motor control, behavioural readouts across species offer the potential to overcome one grand challenge in neuroscience: bridging the gap between molecular, cellular, and systems levels. Importantly, the motor system is affected in many, if not all, neurological and psychiatric disorders. Hence, a more comprehensive understanding of the motor system will further our understanding of the neural mechanisms underlying neurological and psychiatric disorders. Likewise, neuropsychiatric diseases allow novel insights into the motor system’s (dys-)function and testing models of motor control.This collaborative research centre (CRC) brings together neuroscientists investigating genetic factors, cellular, and synaptic as well as systems/neural network processes underlying motor control in animals and humans, in both health and neuropsychiatric diseases. All investigators are committed to the CRC’s multi-faceted, iterative, and integrative agenda with the long-term goal of identifying the essential mechanisms underlying normal and pathological motor control. The proposed research theme and the interdisciplinary, collaborative approach are unique in Germany. This CRC will allow new insights into i) the genetic, cellular, and systems-level mechanisms that contribute to motor precision, coordination, and flexibility/learning of motor behaviour (Research Area A), and ii) how these processes are enabled across the entire lifespan (Research Area B). Importantly, including iii) investigations of disease-induced motor control dysfunction (Research Area C) will allow validating models of physiological motor control and its development, advance our understanding of neurological and psychiatric disorders causing motor dysfunction, and open new vistas to their treatment.

• DFG Programme: Collaborative Research Centres
• International Connection: Israel

Current projects

• A01 - Understanding plastin 3 and its interactors in motor neuron function and plasticity in health and disease (Project Heads Kloppenburg, Peter ;  Wirth, Brunhilde )
• A02 - Dysregulation of the autophagy-endolysosomal system as a putative pathological mechanism behind the motor control dysfunction (Project Head Kononenko, Natalia )
• A03 - The role of the reward system in obesity- and ageing-associated changes of motor behaviours (Project Head Korotkova, Tatiana )
• A04 - Motor learning-induced plasticity of cerebellar Purkinje neuron connectivity (Project Head Bergami, Ph.D., Matteo )
• A05 - Neural mechanisms underlying motor flexibility in fruit fly walking (Project Heads Büschges, Ansgar ;  Erhardt, Erica ;  Ito, Kei )
• A06 - Sensory-motor pathways controlling voluntary movements in health and disease (Project Heads Nawrot, Martin Paul ;  Prut, Yifat )
• A07 - Role of synaptic lipid modulated cortical excitability in motor control (Project Heads Nitsch, Robert ;  Vogt, Johannes )
• B01 - Developmental mechanisms affecting motor skills and motor control (Project Heads Isbrandt, Dirk ;  Roeper, Jochen )
• B02 - Neural network maturation underlying top-down motor control and movement initiation in childhood and adolescence (Project Heads Bender, Stephan ;  Konrad, Kerstin )
• B03 - Modelling neural network dynamics underlying movements in health and disease (Project Heads Daun, Silvia ;  Fink, Gereon Rudolf )
• B04 - Motor control under uncertainty in the healthy human brain (Project Heads Mengotti, Paola ;  Vossel, Simone )
• B05 - Single-case predictions of motor abilities in health and disease (Project Heads Eickhoff, Simon ;  Grefkes-Hermann, Christian )
• C01 - Identification and selective stimulation of motor recovery-related functional networks after experimental stroke (Project Heads Aswendt, Markus ;  Rüger, Maria Adele ;  Schroeter, Michael )
• C03 - Striatal dopamine and volitional motor control: vigour, planning, and incentive salience (Project Heads van Eimeren, Thilo ;  Hönig, Ph.D., Merle )
• C04 - Apraxia in Alzheimer’s disease: Plastic reorganization of praxis networks in response to chronically progressive dysfunction (Project Heads Drzezga, Alexander ;  Weiss-Blankenhorn, Peter )
• C05 - Reorganisation of the motor system following stroke (Project Heads Fink, Gereon Rudolf ;  Grefkes-Hermann, Christian )
• C06 - Major depression as a transient functional lesion model of motor control (Project Heads Jessen, Frank ;  Tittgemeyer, Marc )
• C07 - Neural networks underlying motor tic formation and suppression (Project Heads Baldermann, Juan Carlos ;  Visser-Vandewalle, Ph.D., Veerle )
• INF - Data Managment (Project Heads Daun, Silvia ;  Hanke, Michael ;  Nawrot, Martin Paul )
• MGK - Integrated Research Training Group (Project Heads Büschges, Ansgar ;  Korotkova, Tatiana )
• Z01 - Central Office (Project Head Fink, Gereon Rudolf )
• Z02 - Animal Motor Core Facility (Project Heads Büschges, Ansgar ;  Korotkova, Tatiana )
• Z03 - Humanes Motor-Assesment Center (Project Heads Grefkes-Hermann, Christian ;  Weiss-Blankenhorn, Peter )

• Applicant Institution: Universität zu Köln
• Participating Institution: Forschungszentrum Jülich GmbH ; Institut für Neurowissenschaften und Medizin (INM); Max-Planck-Institut für Stoffwechselforschung
• Participating University: Goethe-Universität Frankfurt am Main; Hebrew University of Jerusalem; The Paul Baerwald School of Social Work & Social Welfare
• Spokesperson: Professor Dr. Gereon Rudolf Fink