More than rewarding

Dr. Simon Jacob most probably enjoyed a high level of "happyness hormone" dopamine when he gave a talk on his research about the hormone's function on May 5th in the DPZ's lecture hall. After all he had only moments before received the DPZ award 2013 handed over by Thomas F. Schulz, chairman of the institute's scientific advisory board. The prize, consisting of 1000 Euros prize money and the option of funds for a six-month primate-focused scholarship sure is a fine reward for excellent research. Dopamine on the other hand, as the awardee clarified in his subsequent talk in front of 50 guests, does not only regulate the reward system, it is also a key messenger in controlling visual attention in the brain.

"Knowledge about the functions of dopamine is needed urgently", read Stefan Treue, director of the DPZ, from the laudatio of absent neuroscientist Andreas Nieder from Tübingen before he congratulated the 25th DPZ-awardee in the name of the institute. Jacob, who currently is being trained as medical specialist in neurology and psychiatry at the Charité in Berlin, clarified in his talk the connection between clinical application and basic science in his project: "We can offer patients, who for example suffer from schizophrenia, only a very limited number of pharmaceuticals", the 36 year old said. Beneath other problems, schizophrenia causes hallucinations - presumably in part because the neurons in the patients' brian's prefrontal cortex do not precisely and regularly enough represent visual stimuli, which are in focus of the patient's attention (a football, for example). In experiments with trained rhesus macaques Simon Jacob showed, that the correct amount of dopamine in these neurons accounts for the stabilization of visual perception. Vice versa the hormone so presumably reduces hallucinations , which makes the football always look like a football and not, say, a melon.