INTERVIEWS WITH THREE OF TÜBINGEN’S
FANTASTIC NEUROSCIENTISTS
Written by Celia Foster
Ever been curious to know a little more about what your friends and colleagues in Tübingen
work on, what secrets they have uncovered while living here, and what inspired them to come
and work here in the first place? Then read on: three of Tübingen’s finest doctoral students
were kind enough to answer my questions on their research work and favourite things about
living in Tübingen.
Abhilash Dwarakanath is originally
from Bangalore, India. He’s lived in
Germany for 6 years now, with the last
three and a half of those in Tübingen.
What made you decide to come to
Tübingen?
Christoph Kayser was here. He works
on multisensory perception with electrophysiology, psychophysics and
computational modelling. Along with
monkeys and the facilities at this MPI,
it was always the first choice.
Whose lab do you work in, and what
made you choose to work there?
I work in the Logothetis department.
Even places like MIT do not have the
range of technical support and facilities that we find here, coupled with
solid veterinary and animal support.
And of course, the department is full
of excellent scientists with Logothetis
himself at the top.
What is your current research project
about?
My current research project is about
unravelling the functional connectivities in the monkey pre-frontal cortex.
I am also looking at cortico-cortical
communication across long distances
(i.e. PFC to primary/parietal areas) and
how information flow changes or is
modulated during multistable perception as opposed to spontaneous activity.
What was your favourite course at the
GTC?
I liked the computational neuroscience
course that Martin Giese offered.
What’s your best discovery in Tübingen?
The Blauer Salon. The Bären but it got
closed. The Indian Imbiss behind Belthlestr where the guy has been serving home-style vegetarian food for
over thirty years and has won awards.
The Hanselmann butcher’s shop on
Schmiedtorstr. is one of its kind.
Jens Klinzing is German, and moved to
Tübingen four years ago.
What made you decide to come to
Tübingen?
I was born in Tübingen but moved
away soon after birth. I came back to
Tübingen for the master’s program
(Neural and Behavioral Sciences) during which I got to know Tübingen for
the first time really. The most important reasons to join this particular
program were its curriculum that perfectly fit my interests, and the good
things I had heard about the program
and the city. When I came over for the
admission interviews, the weather
was beautiful, people were hanging
out at the river, and the welcoming
was so friendly that I chose Tübingen
over Amsterdam and Berlin.
Tübingen gets smaller over time but
after getting my master’s degree I figJuly 2016 | NEUROMAG |
23