Research Division of Mind and Brain Charité: Mission and Aims

In an interdisciplinary research approach the Research Division of Mind and Brain integrates the disciplines of psychiatry, neuroscience, psychology and philosophy in the investigation of the human mind and its disorders. The common guiding principle is that the traditional strict separation between mind and brain is obsolete. The methodological focus is the field of neuroimaging as part of the larger endeavour of the cognitive neurosciences. Neuroimaging focuses on the system level of the brain and thus helps to bridge the large gap between the molecular and the psychological sciences. 

1. Investigation of the neural basis of the human mind in healthy controls, in particular in the fields of stress processing and experience, emotion, volition, and social cognition. The research questions range from the influence of genetic variants on brain systems up to the neural circuits of moral decision making and social behaviour. 
2. Mechanisms of mental disorders in selected patient groups, aiming at understanding the causes and consequences of these disorders with the long-term goal to improve and newly develop diagnostic and therapeutic tools. In the clinical field, the focus of the Research Division is on the affective and schizophrenic psychoses as well as on neuropsychotherapy. 
3. Philosophical problems in the area of philosophy of mind and ethics, in particular with respect to the relevance of new neuroscientific and psychiatric findings for our human self-concept and their ethical, legal and social consequences, chances and risks.