BSc theses and MSc theses in BPN

We offer bachelor and master thesis projects on a variety of research topics within the Biological and Neuropsychology Lab. For each topic, you'll find whether it is suitable for a bachelor or master thesis (or both).

If you are interested in a particular project, please contact the responsible person to check if the topic is still available available and to ensure alignment with your proposed timeline. Once availability is confirmed, please submit the following documents to the relevant contact person to apply:

A short motivation letter (one page) outlining your interest and proposed timeline
Your CV
Your Transcript of Records

Multisensory processing

Training induced short term plasticity (multisensory learning)

How eye movement-related eardrum oscillations are linked to audiovisual perception

Suitability

Bachelor and Master students

Background and scope of the thesis

It have been recently shown that the phase and the amplitude of eardrum oscillations depend on the direction and the magnitude of the saccadic eye movement, respectively, a phenomenon that is called eye movement-related eardrum oscillations (EMREOs). EMREOs have been suggested to contribute in audiovisual integration, however, it is not yet clear how they affect human behavior during audio-visual integration. The aim of this project is to investigate the relation between the EMREO characteristics (e.g. amplitude) and audio-visual perception (e.g., point of subjective simultaneity, PSS). Your tasks in this project are reading the relevant literature, participant recruitment, eardrum and eye tracker data collection, data analysis, presenting the results in our science seminars, and writing up your thesis.

Your profile

Basic knowledge in statistical analysis in SPSS or R (t-test and ANOVA) is required
Basic knowledge in MATLAB and Psychtoolbox is required
Interest in participant recruitment and data collection is required
Motivation to learn new methods and research field through literature research

Literature

Abbasi, H., King, C. D., Lovich, S., Röder, B., Groh, J. M., & Bruns, P. (2025). Eye movement-related eardrum oscillations do not require current visual input. Hearing Research, 465, 109346. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.heares.2025.109346

Gruters, K. G., Murphy, D. L. K., Jenson, C. D., Smith, D. W., Shera, C. A., & Groh, J. M. (2018). The eardrums move when the eyes move: A multisensory effect on the mechanics of hearing. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 115(6), E1309–E1318. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1717948115

Lovich, S. N., King, C. D., Murphy, D. L. K., Abbasi, H., Bruns, P., Shera, C. A., & Groh, J. M. (2023). Conserved features of eye movement related eardrum oscillations (EMREOs) across humans and monkeys. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological Sciences, 378(1886), 20220340. https://doi.org/10.1098/rstb.2022.0340

Supervisor

Dr. Hossein Abbasi (hossein.abbasi@uni-hamburg.de(Hossein.abbasi"AT"uni-hamburg.de))

Impact of anti-saccadic eye movements on eye movement-related eardrum oscillations (EMREOs)

Suitability

Bachelor and Master students

Background and scope of the thesis

Previous studies have suggested strong dependency of the EMREO on eye movement direction. That is the phase of the eardrum oscillation changes by 180° as the direction of the eye movements in the horizontal plane changes. This project aims to investigate how anti-saccadic eye movements affect EMREO characteristics. In a visual task, in half of blocks, participants will move their eye to the visual target appearing on the horizontal plane (saccadic blocks). In the other half of block, participant move their eyes to the opposite side of the visual target referenced to the vertical meridian (anti-saccadic blocks). Your tasks in this project are reading the relevant literature, participant recruitment, eardrum and eye tracker data collection, data analysis, presenting the results in our science seminars, and writing up your thesis.

Your profile:

Basic knowledge in statistical analysis in SPSS or R (t-test and ANOVA) is required
Basic knowledge in MATLAB and Psychtoolbox is required
Interest in participant recruitment and data collection is required
Motivation to learn new methods and research field through literature research

Literature

Abbasi, H., King, C. D., Lovich, S., Röder, B., Groh, J. M., & Bruns, P. (2025). Eye movement-related eardrum oscillations do not require current visual input. Hearing Research, 465, 109346. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.heares.2025.109346

Gruters, K. G., Murphy, D. L. K., Jenson, C. D., Smith, D. W., Shera, C. A., & Groh, J. M. (2018). The eardrums move when the eyes move: A multisensory effect on the mechanics of hearing. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 115(6), E1309–E1318. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1717948115

Lovich, S. N., King, C. D., Murphy, D. L. K., Abbasi, H., Bruns, P., Shera, C. A., & Groh, J. M. (2023). Conserved features of eye movement related eardrum oscillations (EMREOs) across humans and monkeys. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological Sciences, 378(1886), 20220340. https://doi.org/10.1098/rstb.2022.0340

Supervisor

Dr. Hossein Abbasi (hossein.abbasi@uni-hamburg.de(Hossein.abbasi"AT"uni-hamburg.de))

The variability of infants and children environmental exposure to sights and odors

Suitability

Open to Master students

Background and scope of the thesis

The "face diet" refers to the variety and frequency of different faces a person is exposed to in their daily life, and strongly relates to how proficient a person is at face perception. Little is known on younger individuals face diets and how it could impact their cognitive development.

In addition, studies have shown that young infants rely particularly on smells while their visual development is protracted over several years, and that they combine olfactory and visual cues to better understand their world. Altogether, this leaves a gap in understanding which factors contribute most to learning of one’s environment.

This project is based on the development of a parent-reported scale to estimate the daily sensory exposure to sights and odors of their child (0-12 yo) and explore individual vs. age-related changes (e.g., entering Kita / school). The thesis can be done on a subset of the preselected items, depending on the advancement of the project. It can be associated with additional EEG or behavioral data.

Your profile

Proficiency in English (required for thesis writing)
Willingness to develop and apply coding skills for data management and analysis
Curiosity and attention to detail to ensure high-quality data analysis
Ability to work independently on data analysis tasks, with guidance as needed
Strong self-management skills, including task and timeline organization
Interest in research and analytical work, particularly in psychology, social sciences, or related fields

Literature

Balas, B., Saville, A., 2015. N170 face specificity and face memory depend on hometown size. Neuropsychologia 69, 211–217. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.neuropsychologia.2015.02.005

Cecchetto, C.*, Leleu, A.*, Calce, R.P., Arnhardt, S., Parma, V., de Groot, J.H.B., Freiherr, J., Gentili, C., Zou, L., Thunell, E., Fischmeister, F.P.S., Rekow, D.*, Dal Bò, E.*, 2024. Consistent social odor representation across 7 languages: the Social Odor Scale translation and validation. Chemical Senses 49, bjae035. https://doi.org/10.1093/chemse/bjae035 * equal contributions

Rekow, D., Baudouin, J.-Y., Kiseleva, A., Rossion, B., Durand, K., Schaal, B., Leleu, A., 2024. Olfactory-to-visual facilitation in the infant brain declines gradually from 4 to 12 months. Child Development 95, 1967–1981. https://doi.org/10.1111/cdev.14124

Schaal, B., Saxton, T.K., Loos, H., Soussignan, R., Durand, K., 2020. Olfaction scaffolds the developing human from neonate to adolescent and beyond. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences 375, 20190261. https://doi.org/10.1098/rstb.2019.0261

Supervisor

Dr. Diane Rekow (diane.rekow"AT"uni-hamburg.de)

(Correspondence in English)

Visual perception

Quick evaluation of the contrast sensitivity function (CSF) in corrected and incorrected vision

Suitability

Bachelor students only

Background and scope of the thesis

Contrast sensitivity function (CSF) describes how visual sensitivity varies as a function of grating spatial frequency. This function provides a comprehensive measure of the visual system over a wide range of spatial frequencies. The traditional approach to measure CSF requires many trials (e.g., 100 trials) at a fixed spatial frequency while the contrast of the stimulus changes depending on the participant’s performance. This approach detects the threshold contrast sensitivity at a certain spatial frequency. To achieve a complete CSF, participants need to repeat the above-mentioned procedure for several spatial frequencies (e.g., 1, 2, 4, 8, 12, 18, 24, 36 cycles-per-degree), resulting in a long, time-consuming experimental session. To speed up the CSF measurement, we use a Bayesian adaptive method that estimates the CSF in less than 10 minutes (qCSF). The aim of this project is to validate the accuracy of the qCSF method by comparing the calculated CSFs between the traditional and quick method of the CSF calculation in different groups with different vision. Your tasks in this project are reading the relevant literature, participant recruitment, behavioral data collection, data analysis, presenting the results in our science seminars, and writing up your thesis.

Your profile

Basic knowledge in statistical analysis in SPSS or R (t-test and ANOVA) is required
Basic knowledge in MATLAB and Psychtoolbox is a plus
Interest in participant recruitment and data collection is required
Motivation to learn new methods and research field through literature research

Literature

Kalia, A., Lesmes, L. A., Dorr, M., Gandhi, T., Chatterjee, G., Ganesh, S., Bex, P. J., & Sinha, P. (2014). Development of pattern vision following early and extended blindness. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 111(5), 2035–2039. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1311041111

Leek M. R. (2001). Adaptive procedures in psychophysical research. Perception & Psychophysics, 63(8), 1279–1292. https://doi.org/10.3758/bf03194543

Lesmes, L. A., Lu, Z. L., Baek, J., & Albright, T. D. (2010). Bayesian adaptive estimation of the contrast sensitivity function: the quick CSF method. Journal of Vision, 10(3), 1–21. https://doi.org/10.1167/10.3.17

Supervisor

Dr. Hossein Abbasi (hossein.abbasi@uni-hamburg.de(Hossein.abbasi"AT"uni-hamburg.de))

Investigating the relation between visual acuity, Vernier acuity, and contrast sensitivity function (CSF)

Suitability

Bachelor students only

Background and scope of the thesis:

Different measure can estimate how good our vision is. Visual acuity quantifies the eye's ability to resolve fine details. Vernier acuity, on the other hand, quantifies the eye’s ability to detect small positional differences between elements. Using the Vernier acuity, one can detect very small resolution which are below the distance between photoreceptors in the eye (e.g., 3-5 arcseconds). While visual acuity measures the basic image processing and resolution at the level of the retina, Vernier acuity involves higher-level neural processing, as it depends on the brain's ability to integrate and interpret small positional differences between visual stimuli. Another measure, namely contrast sensitivity function (CSF), describes how visual sensitivity varies as a function of grating spatial frequency. The aim of this project is to investigate the relationship between these three measures. Your tasks in this project are reading the relevant literature, participant recruitment, behavioral data collection, data analysis, presenting the results in our science seminars, and writing up your thesis.

Your profile

Basic knowledge in statistical analysis in SPSS or R (t-test and ANOVA) is required
Basic knowledge in MATLAB and Psychtoolbox is a plus
Interest in participant recruitment and data collection is required
Motivation to learn new methods and research field through literature research

Literature

Barollo, M., Contemori, G., Battaglini, L., Pavan, A., & Casco, C. (2017). Perceptual learning improves contrast sensitivity, visual acuity, and foveal crowding in amblyopia. Restorative Neurology and Neuroscience, 35(5), 483–496. https://doi.org/10.3233/RNN-170731

Lesmes, L. A., Lu, Z. L., Baek, J., & Albright, T. D. (2010). Bayesian adaptive estimation of the contrast sensitivity function: the quick CSF method. Journal of Vision, 10(3), 1–21. https://doi.org/10.1167/10.3.17

Supervisor

Dr. Hossein Abbasi (hossein.abbasi@uni-hamburg.de(Hossein.abbasi"AT"uni-hamburg.de))

Visual surround modualtion after short-term changes in excitatory-inhibitory balance of the brain

Suitability

Master students only (this project can be undertaken by a group of two master students)

Background and scope of the thesis

In the figure below, all three small (central) circles are identical, but the one on the right side appears to have much less contrast, appearing almost washed out compared to the one on the left. This phenomenon, known as surround modualtion, demonstrates that visual processing in the brain depends on context. In this case, a surround with similar orientation (right) decreases the visual response compared to a surround that is oriented orthogonally (left). This decrease in visual response can be o measured non-invasively by electroencephalographic (EEG) methods (Vanegas, Blangero, & Kelly, 2015). The neural mechanisms likely involve increased inhibition (I) as well as reduced excitation (E) (Angelucci et al., 2017). The goal of this master thesis is to further understand the role of E-I balance by evaluating electrophysiological and behavioral measures of surround modualtion after short-term visual deprivation, a manipulation that usually increases the excitability of visual cortex (Boroojerdi, 2000). The work is experimental, involving EEG and behavioral data collection and analysis.

Fig. 1: Surround suppression, caused by a similarly oriented background (on the right side), can decrease the apparent contrast of a visual stimulus. All small (central) circles are identical. Copyright: Sourav/CC-BY-4.0

Surround suppression might have resulted from our brains evolving to process natural stimuli optimally, and might facilitate the segmentation of object boundaries (Angelucci et al., 2017; Coen-Cagli, Dayan, & Schwartz, 2012).

The goal of this master thesis is to uncover neural mechanisms of subjective perception and visual behavior. Thus, you will have the chance to both replicate electrophysiological findings related to surround suppression, and to link it to visual behavioral measures. The work is experimental, involving EEG and behavioral data collection and analysis.

Your profile

Strong interest in quantitative experimental research involving participants
Passion in learning new things
Ability to work independently
Nice to have: Basic programming skills in MATLAB/R.

Literature

Angelucci, A., Bijanzadeh, M., Nurminen, L., Federer, F., Merlin, S., & Bressloff, P. C. (2017). Circuits and mechanisms for surround modulation in visual cortex. Annual Review of Neuroscience, 40(1), 425–451. https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev-neuro-072116-031418

Boroojerdi, B., Bushara, K. O., Corwell, B., Immisch, I., Battaglia, F., Muellbacher, W., & Cohen, L. G. (2000). Enhanced excitability of the human visual cortex induced by short-term light deprivation. Cerebral Cortex, 10(5), 529–534. https://doi.org/10.1093/cercor/10.5.529

Vanegas, M. I., Blangero, A., & Kelly, S. P. (2015). Electrophysiological indices of surround suppression in humans. Journal of Neurophysiology, 113(4), 1100–1109. https://doi.org/10.1152/jn.00774.2014

Supversisor

Dr. José Ossandón (jose.ossandon"AT"uni-hamburg.de)

Development of visual surround modulation in childhood

Suitability

Master students only (this project can be undertaken by a group of two master students)

Background and scope of the thesis

In the figure below, all three small (central) circles are identical, yet the one on the right appears to have less contrast compared to the one on the left. This illustrates how visual processing of a stimulus depends on context — a phenomenon known as surround modulation (SM). SM can be measured both at the neural level using EEG (Vanegas, Blangero, & Kelly, 2015) and at the perceptual level through contrast detection thresholds.

A key characteristic of SM is that the degree of modulation depends on the relationship between center and surround properties — including distance, orientation (as demonstrated in the figure below), contrast, and their interactions. Mechanistic models have linked these effects to the structure and function of neural circuits (Angelucci et al., 2017).

SM in motion processing has already been observed in infants (Nakashima et al., 2019); however, the underlying neural mechanisms continue to undergo refinement beyond early developmental stages (Doron, Spierer, & Polat, 2015; Li, Hagan, & Kiorpes, 2013).

The goal of this master’s thesis is to better understand how neural mechanisms involved in visual processing develop by investigating various characteristics of SM in elementary school children, using both EEG and behavioral contrast perception tasks.

Fig. 1: Surround suppression, caused by a similarly oriented background (on the right side), can decrease the apparent contrast of a visual stimulus. All small (central) circles are identical. Copyright: Sourav/CC-BY-4.0

Your tasks in this project include reviewing relevant literature, recruiting elementary school children from our database, learning and conducting EEG and behavioral data collection using a pre-established experimental paradigm, performing data analysis with guidance and support from your supervisor, presenting your results in our science seminar, and writing your thesis.

Your profile

Strong interest in experimental neuroscience research (behavioral and EEG)
Confident and friendly in interacting with elementary school children and their parents
Basic programming skills in MATLAB and/or R are a plus, along with a willingness to learn data analysis techniques for EEG and behavioral data
Good English skills (spoken and written), as the thesis will be in English
Passion for learning new skills and the ability to work independently

Literature

Angelucci, A., Bijanzadeh, M., Nurminen, L., Federer, F., Merlin, S., & Bressloff, P. C. (2017). Circuits and mechanisms for surround modulation in visual cortex. Annual Review of Neuroscience, 40(1), 425–451. https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev-neuro-072116-031418

Doron, R., Spierer, A., & Polat, U. (2015). How crowding, masking, and contour interactions are related: A developmental approach. Journal of vision, 15(8), 5. https://doi.org/10.1167/15.8.5

Li, D. P., Hagan, M. A., & Kiorpes, L. (2013). Linking structure and function: development of lateral spatial interactions in macaque monkeys. Visual neuroscience, 30(5-6), 263–270. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0952523813000394

Nakashima, Y., Yamaguchi, M. K., & Kanazawa, S. (2019). Development of Center-Surround Suppression in Infant Motion Processing. Current biology, 29(18), 3059–3064.e2. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cub.2019.07.044

Vanegas, M. I., Blangero, A., & Kelly, S. P. (2015). Electrophysiological indices of surround suppression in humans. Journal of Neurophysiology, 113(4), 1100–1109. https://doi.org/10.1152/jn.00774.2014

Supervisor

Dr. José Ossandón (jose.ossandon"AT"uni-hamburg.de)

Functional and structural recovery after sight restoration following congenital blindness

Changes in the functional visual field due to low target visibility

Visual imagery in dreams following congenital blindness and later sight restoration

Suitability

Open to Master‘s students

Background

Vision is the primary modality through which healthy populations experience the world. By extension, our dreams are primarily comprised of visual imagery. The presence of visual imagery in the dreams of congenitally blind individuals however, is highly controversial. While some evidence (mainly anecdotal) would suggest that it is possible through mechanisms of sensory substitution, true visual representations require visual input. Indeed, the dreams of congenitally blind individuals are more prominently comprised of non-visual sensations. However, the restoration of sight in these individuals would almost certainly induce remarkable changes in dream content and modality. Individuals born with dense bilateral cataracts removed later in life present a unique opportunity to investigate how dreams change as a result of visual experience.
Using a comprehensive questionnaire, we will survey groups of permanently congenitally blind individuals, congenital cataract reversal individuals, and individuals with other visual impairments, in order to assess the content, intensity, and qualia of their dreams. This survey will be used in both Germany and India, with the thesis based on the German application.

Your profile

Native German speaker
Fluency in English
Hard working with strong self-management skills, including task and timeline organization
Ability to work independently on tasks, with guidance as needed
Interest in research, particularly in neuroscience, psychology, or related fields

Literature

Ilic, K., Bertani, R., Lapteva, N., Drakatos, P., Delogu, A., Raheel, K., Soteriou, M., Mutti, C., Steier, J., Carmichael, D. W., Goadsby, P. J., Ockelford, A., & Rosenzweig, I. (2023). Visuo-spatial imagery in dreams of congenitally and early blind: A systematic review. Frontiers in Integrative Neuroscience, 17. https://doi.org/10.3389/fnint.2023.1204129

Supervisor

Jordan Hassett, PhD candidate (jordan.hassett"AT"uni-hamburg.de)

(Correspondence in English)

Modelling feedback and feedforward predictions during scene perception in visual cortex

Suitability

Open to Master's students only

Background and scope of the thesis

Perceptual experience is shaped by prior expectations, yet how visual priors are acquired during development remains poorly understood. Studying individuals with bilateral congenital cataracts who later gained their sight can provide key insights to this problem.

Visual perception under the predictive coding framework, has seen a transition from being a passive filtering of stimulus to active form of inference. According to this, well-tuned top-down predictions impose prior expectations which interact with the bottom-up feedback information for optimal perception. This orchestration of top-down and bottom-up processing is of particular importance for scene perception, where feedback information from higher-order visual cortices carry the contextual priors for the primary visual cortex. This study will apply computational modeling to investigate neural representations from ultra-high-field fMRI dataset from normally sighted and congenitally cataract reversal individuals while they passively watched partially occluded scenes, for which a filling in process by higher-order cortical feedback has been demonstrated. This “omission” paradigm has been validated to successfully disambiguate feedforward and feedback signals within the visual processing hierarchy.

This study aims to investigate the neural representations in extrastriate areas such as V2 and V3 for top-down representations and bottom-up representations from V1.

Your profile

Strong inclination towards computational modelling and learning new techniques
Familiarity with data analyses in Python, MATLAB, R
Motivation and competency to do literature research
Ability to work independently
Fluent communication in English

Literature

Heitmann, C., Zhan, M., Linke, M., Hölig, C., Kekunnaya, R., van Hoof, R., Goebel, R., & Röder, B. (2023). Early visual experience refines the retinotopic organization within and across visual cortical regions. Current Biology: CB, 33(22), 4950-4959.e4. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cub.2023.10.010

Röder, B., & Kekunnaya, R. (2021). Visual experience dependent plasticity in humans. Current Opinion in Neurobiology, 67, 155–162. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.conb.2020.11.011

Knill, D. C., & Pouget, A. (2004). The Bayesian brain: The role of uncertainty in neural coding and computation. Trends in Neurosciences, 27(12), 712–719. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tins.2004.10.007

Muckli, L., De Martino, F., Vizioli, L., Petro, L. S., Smith, F. W., Ugurbil, K., Goebel, R., & Yacoub, E. (2015). Contextual Feedback to Superficial Layers of V1. Current Biology, 25(20), 2690–2695. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cub.2015.08.057

Supervisor

Dr. Gargi Majumdar (gargi.majumdar"AT"uni-hamburg.de)

BSc theses and MSc theses in BPN

Multisensory processing

Training induced short term plasticity (multisensory learning)

Suitabilty

Background

Scope of the thesis

Literature

Supervisor

How eye movement-related eardrum oscillations are linked to audiovisual perception

Impact of anti-saccadic eye movements on eye movement-related eardrum oscillations (EMREOs)

The variability of infants and children environmental exposure to sights and odors

Visual perception

Quick evaluation of the contrast sensitivity function (CSF) in corrected and incorrected vision

Investigating the relation between visual acuity, Vernier acuity, and contrast sensitivity function (CSF)

Visual surround modualtion after short-term changes in excitatory-inhibitory balance of the brain

Development of visual surround modulation in childhood

Functional and structural recovery after sight restoration following congenital blindness

Changes in the functional visual field due to low target visibility

Visual imagery in dreams following congenital blindness and later sight restoration

Modelling feedback and feedforward predictions during scene perception in visual cortex

Crossmodal plasticity in blind individuals