Working Groups of Department Neurology
The Department of Neurology's research generally focuses on brain-body interactions, risk factors that lead to neurological diseases such as stroke and dementia, and functional recovery after stroke, as well as the underlying mechanisms of these processes.
The Department is organised into several working groups. Some groups are associated with the Clinic for Cognitive Neurology at the University Hospital Leipzig, while others are located at satellite labs at the Berlin School of Mind and Brain and the Max Planck Dahlem Campus of Cognition.
The working groups can be clustered into the topics of brain-body interactions in health and disease, in clinical resarch and care, and in methods development.
The four main underlying themes are heart-brain interactions, gut-brain interactions, sensorimotor mechanisms, stroke and dementia research as well as methods development (please see the table and teaser list below, and links on the right side).
Many groups receive funding not only from the Max Planck Society and/or the University Hospital Leipzig, but also from external sources. The primary external funding agencies are the Federal Ministry of Research, Technology and Space (BMFTR) and the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG).
Overview on working groups and their respective topics
List of all Working Groups of the Department of Neurology
Group of Veronica Witte: They investigate autonomic and cognitive control mechanisms that regulate food intake, metabolic factors that impact the brain due to overeating and obesity, and test if interventions that target these pathways could improve brain function.
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Group of Julia Sacher: They work at the interesection of brain, behavior & hormones, to explore how neuroendocrine systems influence cognitive processes and mental health.
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Group of Matthias Schroeter: They investigates the neural correlates of various psychiatric and neurological disorders and their symptoms including dementia.
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Group of Arno Villringer: The group investigates how transcranial focused ultrasound can be used in combination with MRI scanning to safely and precisely influence brain activity in both superficial and deep regions.
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Group of Arno Villringer: They investigate detrimental, self-reinforcing interactions between body and brain functions that trigger and promote the development of hypertension.
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Group of Michael Gaebler: They investigates the interaction of the brain and the rest of the body during emotional processing with a special focus on potential modulators of cardio- and cerebrovascular health.
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Group of Thomas Fritz: Their key research hypothesis is that motor training with musical agency involves motor learning processes that are more beneficial than conventional motor learning, also in clinical settings.
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Group of Vadim Nikulin: They investigate functional implications of large-scale spatio-temporal neuronal complexity in the human brain.
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Group of Hadas Okon-Singer: The group investigates the neurophysiological mechanisms underlying cognitive biases and their modification, to translate cognitive science into clinically meaningful applications.
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Group of Bernhard Sehm (until 2025): They investigated if neuroplastic processes can be harnessed for the recovery of sensorimotor function in neurological diseases.
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Group of Angelika Thöne-Otto: Their mission is to provide evidence-based tools that allow for personalized therapy, optimized for each individual patient.
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Group of Hellmuth Obrig: They investigate how language affords its central role in cognition and cognitive exchange and how people who suffer from language impairment can be supported in (re)acquiring linguistic and communicative skills.
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Group of Arno Villringer: They investigate neurophysiological processes underlying the cerebral processing of somatosensory stimuli in healthy humans and their alterations in patients after stroke.
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