Thomas Wolbers

Prof. Dr. Thomas Wolbers serves as Group Leader at the German Center for Neurodegenerative Diseases (DZNE) in Magdeburg, Germany, where he directs the Aging and Cognition Group. His research integrates virtual reality, neuroimaging, electrophysiology, and eye-tracking to investigate neural mechanisms underlying cognitive decline in aging and early dementia, with particular emphasis on spatial navigation deficits and memory consolidation processes.

The lab pursues three core objectives: (1) Characterizing age-related neural changes in spatial orientation systems, including entorhinal grid cell decline and hippocampal pattern completion abnormalities; (2) Developing neurobiologically inspired interventions like post-learning sensory stimulation protocols to enhance memory consolidation; and (3) Creating standardized diagnostic tools such as the Grid Cell Analysis Toolbox (GridCAT) for clinical assessment of cognitive dysfunction. Research demonstrates that minimal sensory stimulation after learning improves spatial memory for up to seven days even in older adults, offering potential therapeutic pathways.

Wolbers Lab maintains extensive national and international collaborations spanning computational modeling, human lesion studies, and animal experiments. The group's work bridges fundamental neuroscience with clinical applications, focusing on translating discoveries about thalamic head direction signals, retrosplenial cortex functions, and entorhinal cortex integrity into practical diagnostic and intervention frameworks for preclinical dementia detection.