COFEES – COrtical FEEdback Spring School 06.03.2017-09.03.2017, Jena, Germany REGISTRATION IS NOW OPEN; PRELIMINARY PROGRAM IS AVAILABLE ONLINE The dominant view on the cortical neural processing for a very long time was that the incoming sensory information is passed to higher order processing units within a strongly hierarchical cascade. Such systems are typically dominated by the feedforward or bottom-up connections and complemented by heavy lateral connections between units of the similar hierarchical levels. However, the importance of cortical feedback connections, rooting in higher-level areas and targeting lower-level ones is demonstrated by extensive works in anatomy, neurophysiology and specifically in brain imaging in the last two decades. It is generally accepted that these feedback connections convey several modulatory effects, higher-order representations and also have strong cognitive influences on the earlier processing units. Top-down effect include, among others, the influence of spatial and temporal contexts, of attention, predictions and expectations, learning and memory, as well as task and motor behavior related changes on the lower-level processing stages. In the last decades feedback mechanisms became a widely studied phenomenon in systemic and cognitive neurosciences as well as in cognitive and experimental psychology. The aim of COFEES is to bring together eminent researchers from the USA, the UK, and Europe with students of a broad range of disciplines to teach and discuss current views on feed-back related mechanisms. The speakers are experts in clinical, computational, single-cell, EEG/MEG/ERP and neuroimaging studies. We expect that COFEES will give a unique opportunity to present, discuss, and integrate cutting-edge research on this important phenomenon of the CNS. 1 intensive week of training with 16 speakers from 7 countries for 40 students as a maximum The Friedrich Schiller University, Jena organizes a Spring School aimed at PhD students and post-docs at the early stages in their careers. Places are limited to ensure good interaction in classes. COFEES will take place at the Friedrich Schiller University, Jena, Germany between 06-09 March 2017. It will consist of an intensive week of lectures with two keynotes, a student-oriented poster session and a round-table discussion. Lecturers are renowned researchers from the most active research groups in their fields. A list of invited lecturers and the program of the summer school are available on summer school website: http://www.cogsci.uni-jena.de/COFEES.html <http://www.cogsci.uni-jena.de/COFEES.html> In addition to the academic content, COFEES provides a networking opportunity for students to interact with their peers, and to make contacts among those who will be the active researchers of their own generation. § Important Dates: Registration is open from now. Registration deadline: 31 DEC 2016. Summer school: Monday 06 Marc - Thursday 09 March 2017 § Registration fee: 100 Euro. It includes all sessions and materials, accommodation (5 nights), lunches, refreshments and coffee, finger-foods and wine during poster session and round table discussion, Spring School Dinner. § Confirmed Speakers: Keynote speakers: Sabine Kastner (Princeton, NJ, USA) Pascal Fries (ESI, Frankfurt, D) Board: Moshe Bar (Bar Ilan Univ, Ramat-Gan, Il) Mark Greenlee (Univ. Regensburg, Regensburg, D) Zoe Kourtzi (University of Cambridge, Cambridge, UK) Gyula Kovács (FSU, Jena, D) Jean-Philippe Lachaux (INSERM, Lyon, Fr) Daniel Marguiles (Max Plack Inst. Leipzig, D) Lars Muckli (Univ. Glasgow, Glasgow, UK) Uta Noppeney (Univ. Birmingham, Birmingham, UK) Brigitte Roeder (Univ. Hamburg, Hamburg, D) Pieter Roelfsema (Ned. Inst. Neurosci, Amsterdam, NL) Philipp Sterzer (Charite, Berlin, D) Zoltan Vidnyánszky (Hung. Acad. Sci. Budapest, H) Michael Wibral (Univ. Frankfurt, Frankfurt, D) István Winkler, (Hung. Acad. Sci, Budapest, H)