EHUB (Kyoto)–DPZ Joint Workshop 2025
Igor Kagan; the macaque image modified from: Monkey in a Persimmon Tree, 1935 by Ohara Koson December 10–11, 2025
German Primate Center (DPZ), Göttingen
How do primates – including humans – make decisions in everyday life? Understanding this fundamental process is key to explaining how animals navigate their environment, cooperate, compete, and ultimately survive.
On December 10–11, researchers from the Kyoto University’s Center for the Evolutionary Origins of Human Behavior (EHUB), Leibniz Institute for Neurobiology in Magdeburg, and DPZ will meet in Göttingen for the EHUB–DPZ 2025 Joint Workshop. The workshop brings together scientists working on decision-making, cognition, and neurobiology across primate species.
The workshop will feature presentations, a poster session, discussions, and planning of joint research activities between DPZ and EHUB, strengthening the growing collaboration between the two institutions.
The collaboration aims to uncover the evolutionary origins of sophisticated decision-making. Using a comparative framework, the project examines marmosets and macaques – two species with distinct evolutionary histories, social structures, and behavioral repertoires – and relates the findings to human behavior and cognition. By analyzing how neural circuits evolved to support flexible cognition and adaptive choices, the project seeks to identify shared mechanisms across species, as well as the foundations of uniquely human capabilities.
DPZ organizer: Igor Kagan