Ilka Diester

Honors and Awards

• Longterm fellowship, HFSP (2009)
• Postdoctoral Fellowship, DAAD (2008)
• HIH Research Prize, Hertie-Institute of Clinical Brain Research (2008)
• Travel Award, German Society for Neuroscience (2007)
• Scholarship Award, Marine Biological Laboratory (2005)

Professional Education

• Diplom (MSc), Humboldt-University Berlin Biology (2003)
• Doctor of Philosophy, Eberhard Karls Universitat Tubingen (2008)

Faculty Advisor

• Karl Deisseroth

Web Site Links

• Deisseroth Lab

Research Interests

I am interested in neuronal circuits of cognition. As a Ph.D candidate, I investigated the encoding of semantic association between numerosities and visual signs in the prefrontal and parietal cortex of nonhuman primates as well as the differential involvement and interaction of different cell types. During my postdoctoral research, I develop and use optogenetic tools to analyze circuits between brain areas and target specific cell types.

Publications

• Numerical Values Leave a Semantic Imprint on Associated Signs in Monkeys. Diester I,  Nieder A.  J Cogn Neurosci.  2009;
• Complementary contributions of prefrontal neuron classes in abstract numerical categorization. Diester I,  Nieder A.  J Neurosci.  2008; 28 (31): 7737-47
• The evolution of numerical cognition: from number neurons to linguistic quantifiers. Hubbard EM,  Diester I, Cantlon JF, Ansari D, Opstal F, Troiani V.  J Neurosci.  2008; 28 (46): 11819-24
• Semantic associations between signs and numerical categories in the prefrontal cortex. Diester I,  Nieder A.  PLoS Biol.  2007; 5 (11): e294
• Temporal and spatial enumeration processes in the primate parietal cortex. Nieder A,  Diester I, Tudusciuc O.  Science.  2006; 313 (5792): 1431-5