Deutsch Intern
Research Training Group 2660: Approach-Avoidance

Project details

Research strategy

This RTG operationalizes and investigates approach and avoidance behaviour by focusing on conflict situations characterized by risk assessment and decision making. We focus on three main determinants of these conflict situations that elicit approach and avoidance behaviour and consequently, the RTG is organised in three project areas (see Figure). Project area A focuses on dynamic circuit switches for approach and avoidance behaviour from mouse models to human probands with the ultimate goal to use neurofeedback approaches in the treatment of maladapted avoidance behaviour of migraine patients. Project area B investigates control mechanisms of approach-avoidance conflicts in situations that evoke impulsive and reflective processes, including their developmental plasticity and molecular basis. Project area C focuses on social contexts and elucidates how approach and avoidance behaviour emerges in social situations and how it might be modulated by social support. Each area encompasses animal, human, and clinical research projects to allow for project-driven transfer of know-how and data. This interdisciplinarity ensures adequate consideration of different investigative dimensions, i.e. molecular, circuit and behavioural levels of analyses, addressing basic physiology and pathomechanisms of approach and avoidance behaviours.

Individual projects

Individual projects focus on mice  or humans  and address physiological or pathological  conditions.

A1: Characterization of prefrontal-amygdala-brainstem circuits in learned and innate approach-avoidance behaviour in mice
(Prof. Dr. Philip Tovote)

A1a

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A1b

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A1c

 

A1d 

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A2: Modulating oscillatory activity to reduce avoidance and increase approach behaviour in humans
(Prof. Dr. Andrea Kübler)

A2a

 

A2b

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A3: Approach and avoidance behaviour in pain management
(Prof. Dr. Claudia Sommer, Dr. Daniel Zeller)

A3a

  

 

A3b

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B1: Approach and avoidance control related to impulsive versus reflective processes
(Prof. Dr. Paul Pauli, Dr. Andre Pittig)

B1a

 

B1b

 

B1c

  

       
B2: Developmental effects of approach-avoidance conflicts related to impulsive approach and generalized avoidance
(Prof. Dr. Andrea Reiter, Prof. Dr. Marcel Romanos)

B2a

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B2b

  

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B3: Adaptive and maladaptive cortico-striatal processes in impulsivity-driven approach behaviour
(Prof. Dr. Klaus-Peter Lesch, Dr. Georg Ziegler)

B3a

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B3b

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B3c

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C1: Attentional and neural dynamics of social approach and avoidance behaviour
(Prof. Dr. Matthias Gamer)

C1a

 

C1b

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C1c

  

 

C1d

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C1e

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C2: Avoidance and approach in the presence of others
(Prof. Dr. Grit Hein)

C2a

  

 

C2b

 

C2c

 

C2d

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C2e

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C3: Role of the serotonergic system in approach and avoidance behaviour in social situations
(PD Dr. Angelika Schmitt-Böhrer, Prof. Dr. Esther Asan)

C3a

 

C3b

 

C3c

 

C3d

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