Discover our latest scientific output — peer-reviewed papers, reviews, and studies by the SynoSys team. Always up-to-date, always evolving.
Fractured reality: How democracy can win the global struggle over the information space
M Scharfbillig, S Lewandowsky, S Altay, M Van Alstyne, A Kozyreva, R Hertwig, Philipp Lorenz-Spreen, R DiResta, S Valenzuela, S Egidy, W Quattrociocchi, A OrbenJournalPublications Office of the European Union | 2026
Boosting metacognition in entangled human-AI interaction to navigate cognitive-behavioral drift
A comprehensive systematic review of the psychometrics of left-wing ideology
D Avendaño, Ezequiel Lopez-Lopez, A Sánchez-Zavala, P Gayozzo, L Brisuela-Blume, J Díaz, J Santibáñez-Palma, A Martínez-Vázquez, V García-Belaunde, E ArangoJournalPsyArXiv | 2026
Empirical Perspectives on Digital Media and Democracy and Implications for Alternative Platform Governance
Philipp Lorenz-SpreenJournalThe Routledge Companion to Digital Media and Democracy | 2026
Research Opportunities and Challenges of the EU's Digital Services Act
Philipp Lorenz-Spreen, Francesco Pierri, Theo Araujo, Sanne Kruikemeier, Mariek M. P. Vanden Abeele, Laura Vandenbosch, Joana Gonçalves-Sa, Przemyslaw A. GrabowiczJournalCommunications of the ACM (preprint) | 2025
Not Extremely Plastic: Testing the Limits of Morphological Plasticity in Fungal Mycelia in Response to Soil Grazers
Large language models accurately identify decision reasons in verbal reports
Kamil Fuławka, Ralph Hertwig, Dirk WulffJournalOSF preprint | 2025
What makes a claim checkworthy? An investigation into the selection criteria for fact-checking using news value theory
Sami NennoJournalOnlineFirst - Journalism & Mass Communication (SAGE Publications) | 2025
All The (Fake) News That’s Fit to Share? News Values in Perceived Misinformation across Twenty-Four Countries
Sami Nenno, Cornelius PuschmannJournalThe International Journal of Press (SAGE Publications) | 2025
Separate worlds of misinformation. An explorative study of checked claims in German public broadcast news and talk shows.
Sami NennoJournalInformation, Communication & Society | 2025
Wearable data reveals distinct characteristics of individuals with persistent symptoms after a SARS-CoV-2 infection
Katharina Ledebur, M Wiedermann, Christian Puta, Stefan Thurner, Peter Klimek, Dirk BrockmannJournalnpj Digit. Med (8):167 | 2025
Psychosocial predictors and justification patterns of traditional and alternative medicine in Peru
A Fasce, J Rosales-Trabuco, J Rodríguez-Ferreiro, I Barberia, E Pinedo-Yzaguirre, J Nuñez, W Ortiz-Treviños, C Moncada, M Reyes-Bossio, C Carbajal-León, Ezequiel Lopez-LopezJournalOSF Preprints | 2025
Inferring country-specific import risk of diseases from the world air transportation network
Towards an understanding of physical activity-induced post-exertional malaise: Insights into microvascular alterations and immunometabolic interactions in post-COVID condition and myalgic encephalomyelitis/chronic fatigue syndrome
Simon Haunhorst, Diana Dudziak, Carmen Scheibenbogen, Martina Seifert, Franziska Sotzny, Carsten Finke, Uta Behrends, Konrad Aden, Stefan Schreiber, Dirk Brockmann, Paul Burggraf, Wilhelm Bloch, Claudia Ellert, Anuradha Ramoji, Juergen Popp, Philipp Reuken, Martin Walter, Andreas Stallmach, Christian PutaJournalInfection | 2024
Using smartphones to study vaccination decisions in the wild
N A Girardini, A Stopczynski, O Baranov, C Betsch, Dirk Brockmann, S Lehmann, R BöhmJournalPLOS Digital Health 3(8): e0000550 | 2024
Real-time assessment of motives for sharing and creating content among highly active Twitter users
Philipp Lorenz-Spreen, R C Arslan, A Kozyreva, B Swire-Thompson, M Geers, S M Herzog, R HertwigJournalOSF | 2024
Toolbox of individual-level interventions against online misinformation
A Kozyreva, Philipp Lorenz-Spreen, S M. Herzog, U K. H. Ecker, S Lewandowsky, R Hertwig, A Ali, J Bak-Coleman, S Barzilai, M Basol, A J. Berinsky, C Betsch, J Cook, L K. Fazio, M Geers, A M. Guess, H Huang,, H Larreguy, R Maertens, F Panizza, G Pennycook, D G. Rand,, S Rathje, J Reifler, P Schmid, M Smith, B Swire-Thompson, P Szewach, S van der Linden, S WineburgJournalNature Human Behaviour | 2024
Reconstructing and predicting the spatial evolution of Carbapenemase-producing Enterobacteriaceae outbreaks
A. Myall, Marc Wiedermann, P. Vasikasin, Pascal Klamser, Y. Wan, A. Zachariae, R. Peach, I. Dorigatti, L. Kreitmann, J. Rodgus, M. Getino-Redondo, S. Mookerje, E. Jauneikaite, F. Davies, A. Weiße, J. Price, A. Holmes, M. Barahona, Dirk BrockmannJournalInternational Journal of Infectious Diseases 130, S65 | 2023
Directing smartphone use through the self-nudge app one sec
How behavioural sciences can promote truth, autonomy and democratic discourse online
Philipp Lorenz-Spreen, S Lewandowsky, C R. Sunstein, R HertwigJournalNature Human Behaviour | 2020
German COVID-19 Snapshot Monitoring (COSMO)-Welle 11 (12.05.2020)
C Betsch, L Korn, L Felgendreff, S Eitze, P Schmid, P Sprengholz, L Wieler, P Schmich, V Stollorz, M Ramharter, M Bosnjak, S B Omer, H Thaiss, F De Bock, U von Rüden, M Crockett, C Krauth, Dirk Brockmann, Frank SchlosserJournalPsychArchives | 2020
Dirk Brockmann, H Dreier, L Feld, K Fiedler, B Friedrich, C Fuest, P Gumbsch, M Hasselhorn, G H Haug, J Kocka, O Köller, T Krieg, H Kroemer, T Lengauer, J Margraf, C Markschies, W Marquardt, K U Mayer, R Merkel, T Mettenleiter, A Nassehi, M Prenzel, J Renn, F Rösler, R Schlögl, C WiesemannJournalNationale Akademie der Wissenschaften Leopoldina | 2020
German COVID-19 Snapshot Monitoring (COSMO)-Welle 9 (28.04.2020)
C Betsch, L Korn, L Felgendreff, S Eitze, P Schmid, P Sprengholz, L Wieler, P Schmich, V Stollorz, M Ramharter, M Bosnjak, S B Omer, H Thaiss, F De Bock, U von Rüden, M Crockett, C Krauth, Dirk Brockmann, Frank SchlosserJournalPsychArchives | 2020
Effective containment explains subexponential growth in recent confirmed COVID-19 cases in China
Massive parallelization boosts big Bayesian multidimensional scaling
A J Holbrook, P Lemey, G Baele, S Dellicour, Dirk Brockmann, A Rambaut, M A SuchardJournalJournal of Computational and Graphical Statistics, DOI: 10.1080/10618600.2020.1754226 | 2020
Comprehensive integrated NGS-based surveillance and contact-network modeling
B Neumann, J K Bender, Benjamin F. Maier, A Wittig, S Fuchs, Dirk Brockmann, T Semmler, H Einsele, S Kraus, L H Wieler, U Vogel, G WernerJournalPLoS ONE 15(6): e0235160 | 2020
Experiencing the risk of overutilising opioids among patients with chronic non-cancer pain in ambulatory care (ERONA): the protocol of an exploratory, randomised controlled trial
O Wegwarth, C Spies, E Schulte, J J Meerpohl, C Schmucker, E Nury, Dirk Brockmann, N Donner-Banzhoff, S Wind, E Goebel, W-D Ludwig, R HertwigJournalBMJ Open, 10, e037642 | 2020
Accelerating dynamics of collective attention
Philipp Lorenz-Spreen, B Mørch Mønsted, P Hövel, S LehmannJournalNature Communications | 2019
Modular hierarchical and power-law small-world networks bear structural optima for minimal first passage times and cover time
L Böttcher, O Woolley-Meza, Dirk BrockmannJournalPLoS ONE 12(5): e0178062 | 2017
Public health: This message must be herd
Dirk BrockmannJournalNature Human Behaviour 1 (0065) | 2017
Fundamental properties of cooperative contagion processes
Li Chen, Fakhteh Ghanbarnejad, Dirk BrockmannJournalNew J. Phys. 19 103041 | 2017
Effective distances for epidemics spreading on complex networks
F Iannelli, A Koher, Dirk Brockmann, P Hövel, I M SokolovJournalPhys. Rev. E 95, 012313 | 2017
A complex network perspective for characterizing urban travel demand patterns: graph theoretical analysis of large-scale origin-destination demand networks
M Saberi, H S Mahmassani, Dirk Brockmann, A HosseiniJournalTransportation 44, pages1383–1402 | 2017
Molecular surveillance of measles and rubella in the WHO European Region: new challenges in the elimination phase
S Santibanez, J M Hübschen, M C Ben Mamou, M Muscat, K E Brown, R Myers, O Donoso Mantke, H Zeichhardt, Dirk Brockmann, S V Shulga, C.P.Muller, P M O'Connor, M N Mulders, A MankertzJournalClinical Microbiology and Infection 23 516e523 | 2017
Connectivity of diagnostic technologies: improving surveillance and accelerating tuberculosis elimination
E Andre, C Isaacs, D Affolabi, R Alagna, Dirk Brockmann, B C de Jong, E Cambau, G Churchyard, T Cohen, M Delmée, J-C Delvenne, M Farhat, A Habib, P Holme, S Keshavjee, A Khan, P Lightfoot, D Moore, Y Moreno, Y Mundade, M Pai, S Patel, A U Nyaruhirira, L E Rocha, J Takle, A Trébucq, J Creswell, C BoehmeJournalThe International Journal of Tuberculosis and Lung Disease, 20 (8), pp. 999-1003 | 2016
Saving human lives: What complexity science and information systems can contribute
D Helbing, Dirk Brockmann, T Chadefaux, K Donnay, U Blanke, O Woolley-Meza, M Moussaid, A Johansson, J Krause, S Schutte, M PercJournalJournal of statistical physics, 158 (3), 735--781 | 2015
Spatial and functional heterogeneities shape collective behavior of tumor-immune networks
D K Wells, Y Chuang, L M Knapp, Dirk Brockmann, W L Kath, J N LeonardJournalPLoS Comput Biol 11(4): e1004181 | 2015
Understanding and predicting the global spread of emergent infectious diseases
Dirk BrockmannJournalPublic Health Forum | Band 22: Heft 3 | 2014
Unifying viral genetics and human transportation data to predict the global transmission dynamics of human influenza H3N2
P Lemey, A Rambaut, T Bedford, N Faria, F Bielejec, G Baele, C A Russell, D J Smith, O G Pybus, Dirk Brockmann, M A SuchardJournalPLoS Pathog 10(2): e1003932 | 2014
Origin detection during food-borne disease outbreaks-a case study of the 2011 ehec/hus outbreak in germany
J Manitz, T Kneib, M Schlather, D Helbing, Dirk BrockmannJournalPLoS Curr. April 1; 6 | 2014
Robustness of skeletons and salient features in networks
L M Shekhtman, J P Bagrow, Dirk BrockmannJournalJournal of Complex Networks, 2 (2), 110–120 | 2014
The hidden geometry of complex, network-driven contagion phenomena
Dirk Brockmann, D HelbingJournalScience 342 (6164), 1337-1342 | 2013
Natural human mobility patterns and spatial spread of infectious diseases
V Belik, T Geisel, Dirk BrockmannJournalPhysical Review X 1 (1), 011001 | 2011
The structure of borders in a small world
C Thiemann, F Theis, D Grady, R Brune, Dirk BrockmannJournalPLoS ONE 5(11): e15422 | 2010
Human mobility and spatial disease dynamics
Dirk BrockmannJournalIn Reviews of Nonlinear Dynamics and Complexity, H.G. Schuster (Ed.). | 2009
The scaling laws of human travel
Dirk Brockmann, L Hufnagel, T GeiselJournalNature 439 (7075), p. 462-465 | 2006
Forecast and control of epidemics in a globalized world
L Hufnagel, Dirk Brockmann, T GeiselJournalProceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 101 (42), 15124-15129 | 2004
Lévy flights in inhomogeneous media
Dirk Brockmann, T GeiselJournalPhys. Rev. Lett. 90, 170601 | 2003
Lévy flights in external force fields: from models to equations
Dirk Brockmann, I M SokolovJournalChemical Physics, 284 (1–2), 409--421 | 2002
