Bernstein Award 2009 for Jan Gläscher, California Institute of Technology
On September 30, 2009, at the 2009 Bernstein Conference in Frankfurt a.M., Parliamentary Secretary of State Thomas Rachel awarded this year’s Bernstein Award to the neuroscientist Dr. Jan Gläscher. (September 2009)
Dr. Jan Gläscher
Since 2006, the Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) annually confers the “Bernstein Award” which is endowed with up to 1,25 million Euros. The internationally announced award allows excellent young scientists to establish an independent research group in the field of Computational Neuroscience at a research institute or university in Germany. The award is part of the “National Bernstein Network Computational Neuroscience” that was initiated in 2004 by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research and that is supported with a total funding volume of approximately 100 million Euros. An international jury selected Jan Gläscher for the Bernstein Award 2009 on the basis of his outstanding achievements and his innovative project proposal in the subject area of “decision making”. Thomas Rachel, Parliamentary Secretary of State of the BMBF, ceremonially presented the Award to Gläscher at the 5th annual Conference of the Bernstein Network Computational Neuroscience in Frankfurt a.M. “The Bernstein Award of the Federal Ministry of Education and Research, endowed with 1,25 million Euros, is a success story. This year, we succeeded with this award to bring Dr. Jan Gläscher, an excellent young researcher with a fascinating research project, back from California to Germany”, Rachel said.
Jan Gläscher studied psychology at the universities of Giessen and Mannheim. He did his PhD work in the field of cognitive neuroscience in the laboratory of Prof. Dr. Christian Büchel and Prof. Dr. Bernd Dahme at the University Medical Center Hamburg-Eppendorf. Since 2006, Gläscher works at the Institute of Technology (Pasadena, California). With the aid of the BMBF award, Jan Gläscher will return to Germany in order to establish an independent research group at the University Medical Center Hamburg-Eppendorf.
Jan Gläscher’s research
With the support of the Bernstein Award, Jan Gläscher will analyze
factors that influence us in decision making. Basic knowledge already
exist on how and where in the brain decision alternatives are compared
and weighed against each other, but current models neglect further
factors that influence decision making. For example, decisions are
often influenced by a person’s social environment. In order to
construct quantitative models of decision making Gläscher will conduct
behavioral experiments in combination with functional Magnetic
Resonance Imaging (fMRI). In his experiments, experimental subjects
must select one out of multiple symbols. Their decision is, depending
on the selected symbol, associated with monetary gain or loss. With
time, the subjects learn which decisions lead to gain and which to
loss. During the whole experiment, brain processes are measured using
fMRI. “These prototypical decision situations are a good tool for
analyzing evaluation processes within the brain” says Gläscher.
Gläscher will investigate the influence of several different simultaneous factors on decision making by a modification of the experiment. For example, the symbols are replaced by pictures of more or less attractive persons. With such an approach the following questions may be addressed: How are attractiveness and expected monetary gain integrated in the brain? How do men react to pictures of women in leadership positions – do prejudices or unconscious evaluation processes play a role in decision making? How long does re-learning take after the relation between symbol and monetary value changes? Which genetic factors are involved?
“We compare the fMRI data with predictions from certain models for learning and decision making. With this method, we can very precisely determine specific variables, e.g. the expected value corresponding to a certain decision”, Gläscher explains.
Jan Gläscher’s results will lead to a better understanding of the brain processes that contribute to decision making. They will contribute to the improvement of existing and development of new therapies for psychiatric diseases with impaired decision behavior, such as depression and obsessive-compulsive disorders.
Awardee
Dr. Jan Gläscher
California Institute of Technology
Division of Humanities and Social Sciences
