Division of Mind and Brain Research

The research division was established on January 01, 2010. It has the goal of uniting the disciplines of psychiatry, neuroscience and philosophy in the exploration of the human mind and its disorders. Henrik Walter is also associated with the Berlin School of Mind and Brain and the Bernstein Center for Computational Neuroscience and leads a research group at the Department of Medical Psychology in Bonn.

We explore the neural basis of thinking, acting and feeling with the methods of cognitive neuroscience, particularly with functional imaging. Based on these studies, we investigate the mechanisms of mental disorders in selected patient groups with the aim of understanding the causes and consequences of such diseases better and improving the long term diagnostic and therapeutic procedures as well as developing new. In neurophilosophy and neuroethics we review the impact of current neuroscientific and psychiatric findings for the understanding of man and its social impact, opportunities and risks.

Our thematic research focus is on imaging genetics, emotions, volition and executive functions, social cognition, as well as neurophilosophy and neuroethics. Clinical focus is on schizophrenia and affective psychoses, bases of addiction disorders and neuropsychotherapy.