Our seamless stream of thoughts and actions cloud be one of the greatest mysteries of the mind. This mystery is the ease with which we constantly and effortlessly chose one thing to do and many other things to let. Even more miraculously, we sometimes switch to a mode in which we can work in parallel on some tasks to then switch back to a serial mode of working. Often this flexibility of our mind was discussed in a corticocentric way, as if our cortex does it all. Now, the newly accepted and DFG-funded Emmy Noether group of Christian Beste set sails to completely change perspectives. In a grand effort that involves psychological, genetic, neurological, electrophysiological, theoretical, and imaging-based approaches, he and his team is dedicated to find crucial answers to the mysteries of the parallel and/or serially organized mind by focusing on the intricacies of the basal ganglia. The reviewers of the DFG were deeply impressed with the 5 year plan and decided to generously support this endeavor. By acquiring an Emmy Noether group, Christian is eligible to create his own independent research unit that is associated with the Biopsychology lab.

CONGRATULATIONS CHRISTIAN !!!