Welcome

Movements allow us to independently interact with our environments. Skilled movements are required for behaviors of every-day life, active mobility or communication. However, beyond its instrumental nature, motor behavior is much more than that.

For example, the biological consequences of repeated motor behavior, i.e. during regular physical exercise or motor learning, can have a great impact on the brain and its cognitive functions – substantiating its relevance for healthy cognitive ageing or the prevention and rehabilitation of neurological diseases.

Our group develops new motor training strategies to harness and optimize their positive effects on cognitive and motor performance. Our research approach is based on a thorough understanding of the interplay between motor behavior and the brain’s remarkable adaptive capacities.

Intro

What we do

Training-induced Brain Plasticity

Training-induced Brain Plasticity

We are interested in the brains’ capacity to modulate its structure and function in response to motor skill learning or physical exercise. Our working hypothesis is that properly activating the brains’ reactive capacities will improve cognitive faculties (transfer).

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Cognitive Abilities and Behavior

Cognitive Abilities and Behavior

This new research topic investigates how individual cognitive faculties impact motor behavior in real-world situations with a high degree of uncertainty (e.g. game sports). Our working hypothesis is that individual cognitive faculties can be enhanced through specific training strategies and that these individual improvements will impact collective decision-making in groups or teams.

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What is new

New paper published in The Journal of Neuroscience

October 2023

Martin presented first behavioral results of our CRC-Project C01

May 2023

Research Sabbatical at MPI for Evolutionary Anthropology

March 2023

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What we publish

Here you can find the lab’s latest research papers published in peer-review journals.

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All publications

Meet the team

Cognition and Action Research Group

About us

Funded by

bundesinstitut sportwissenschaft

otto-von-guericke-universität magdeburg

deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft