Behavior and Cognition

Hansjörg Scherberger

Research Group Neurobiology
German Primate Center


Research Interests


  • Neurophysiology of primate hand function
  • Cortical representations of hand movements
  • Brain-machine interfaces



Education and Employment

2008 -Professor, Göttingen University and German Primate Center, Göttingen
2008Habilitation in Neuroscience, Department of Biology, ETH Zürich, Switzerland
2004 - 2009Independent Junior Group Leader (Oberassistent). Institute of Neuroinformatics, ETH / University of Zürich, Switzerland
2000 - 2004Senior Postdoctoral Fellow. California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, CA, USA
1998 - 2000Postdoctoral Fellow. California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, CA, USA
1995 - 1998Research Fellow. Dept of Neurology, University of Zürich, Switzerland
1996Dr. med., Albert-Ludwigs-University Freiburg, Germany
1993Dipl. math., Albert-Ludwigs-University Freiburg, Germany



Selected honours and awards

2005 - 2007Research Award of the University of Zürich, Switzerland
2000 - 2002Research Award from the Christopher Reeve Paralysis Foundation, USA


Selected publications

Michaels JA, Dann B, Scherberger H (2016). Neural population dynamics during reaching are better explained by a dynamical system than representational tuning. PLoS Computational Biology 12(11): e1005175

Dann B, Michaels JA, Schaffelhofer S, Scherberger H (2016). Uniting functional net-work topology and oscillations in the fronto-parietal single unit network of behaving primates. eLife 2016(5): e15719

Schaffelhofer S, Scherberger H (2016). Object vision to hand action in macaque parietal, premotor, and motor cortices. eLife 2016(5): e15278

Schaffelhofer S, Agudelo-Toro A, Scherberger H (2015). Decoding a wide range of hand configurations from macaque motor, premotor, and parietal cortices. Journal of Neuroscience 35: 1068-81

Lehmann S, Scherberger H (2013). Reach and gaze representations in macaque parietal and premotor grasp areas. Journal of Neuroscience 33: 7038-49

Townsend BR, Subasi E, Scherberger H (2011). Grasp movement decoding from premotor and parietal cortex. Journal of Neuroscience 31: 14386-98

Baumann M, Fluet MC, Scherberger H (2009). Context-specific grasp movement representation in the macaque anterior intraparietal area. Journal of Neuroscience 29: 6436-48

Scherberger H (2009). Neural control of motor prostheses. Current Opinion in Neurobiology 19: 629-33

Scherberger H, Jarvis MR, Andersen RA (2005). Cortical local field potential encodes movement intentions in the posterior parietal cortex. Neuron 46: 347-354

Musallam S, Corneil BD, Greger B, Scherberger H, Andersen RA (2004). Cognitive control signals for neural prosthetics. Science 305: 258-262