Our next Brain Resonance Seminar will be held on Monday 11 May 2026 when Professor Marc Tittgemeyer from the Max Plant Institute for Metabolism Research and University of Cologne will be giving a talk titled “Metabolic Signals as Neuromodulators: A Neural Logic for State-Dependent Motivation”. See below for details.

As per usual, we will be in the MR Conference room and the seminar will start at 9:15am. 

Abstract of the talk :

"Behaviour is adaptive: to survive, organisms must continuously align actions with physiological needs. Neural circuits integrate interoceptive signals—such as hunger or satiety—with external cues to guide decisions that adapt behaviour and maintain homeostasis. In the talk, I will discuss how the brain can encode internal states and transform sensory input into directed action through a dynamic neural logic. Metabolic signals thereby act as neuromodulators that reconfigure circuit function, reshaping decision tradeoffs—from exploitation to exploration. This reveals that traits like impulsivity and motivation are not fixed, but tuned by internal state. These findings underscore that cognition and action emerge from the brain’s ongoing effort to regulate bodily states, with motivational salience dynamically encoded by the interplay of physiology and neural circuitry."