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Neuroscience of motivated behaviour
Translational mental health strategy
Cooperating institutions
Core research areas
Researchers
Infrastructure & facilities
Funding
Education & training
Translational impact
Contact us
Translational mental health strategy
Cooperating institutions
Core research areas
Researchers
Infrastructure & facilities
Funding
Education & training
Translational impact
Dept. of Systems Neuroscience, Centre for Experimental Medicine, University Medical Centre Hamburg-Eppendorf
Contact
Tel.: +49 (0) 40 7410 – 54726
Mail: buechel@uke.de
Dept. of Systems Neuroscience, Centre for Experimental Medicine, University Medical Centre Hamburg-Eppendorf
Contact
Tel.: +49 (0) 40 7410 – 55769
Mail: t.lonsdorf@uke.de
Dept. of Neurophysiology and
Pathophysiology, Centre for Experimental Medicine, University Medical Centre Hamburg-Eppendorf
Contact
Tel.: +49 (0) 40 7410 – 55378
Mail: t.donner@uke.de
Contact
Tel.: +49 (0) 40 7410 – 54726
Mail: buechel@uke.de
Contact
Tel.: +49 (0) 40 7410 – 55769
Mail: t.lonsdorf@uke.de
Contact
Tel.: +49 (0) 40 7410 – 55378
Mail: t.donner@uke.de
This research consortium is dedicated to the following aims:
C. Büchel is a methods expert in human neuroimaging and significantly promoted its development, including MRI of the spinal chord. His main research focus is the neuro-scientific investigation of expectations, including placebo- and nocebo-effects related to therapy, and research on hedonic processing in addiction and other mental illnesses.
T. Lonsdorf is a leading expert in the neuroscience of aversely motivated behaviour, mostly related to fear and anxiety, which is relevant in many different mental illnesses. She studies individual responses and trajectories related to fear and anxiety, which are often related to adversity and trauma, ranging from normal to pathological states. Among her achievements are also methodological ones, such as pioneering electromyography recordings during functional magnetic resonance imaging, and successful mapping of the affective neuromodulatory startle pathway. These methods and related findings are highly relevant for improved differential diagnosis, predictive validity, as well as individualized, mechanism-based therapy of anxiety- and related disorders.
T. Donner has his major field of expertise in computational cognitive neuroscience, analyzing cortical network dynamics. He has pioneered MEG recordings for non-invasive assessment of large-scale cortical network dynamics and is an expert in applying a multi-method approach combining pharmacology, pupillometry, psychophysics, fMRI/ MEG neuroimaging, and multi-scale computational models. This methodological expertise is key to developing more valid markers of psychopathology and to understand them as dimensional, multi-faceted constructs. In addition, T. Donner investigates neural underpinnings of human decision making processes, including information and decision biases, which are relevant for a variety of symptoms such as delusions or cognitive biases in mental illness. In his recent work, he studies excitatory-inhibitory profiles in the brain and their relation to psychotic disorders.
Together, this team aims at contributing to the dimensional and multifaceted (multi-methods) understanding and characterization of human behaviour, including its full range from normal to extreme expressions. In the long term, understanding mental illness as form of human behaviour that lies at an extreme end of a continuum, that may at some point have been learned and may have served an adaptive purpose (e.g. in response to adversity or trauma), will lead to more precise diagnosis and focused therapies (i.e. precision medicine approach).
ERC advanced grant: PainPersist – Psychobiological mechanisms of pain. This project tackles chronic pain as a common, yet underserved problem. C. Büchel proposes a radical shift in solving symptom persistence, which often leads to costly and ineffective long-term drug treatment. The project implements psychological expectation management, control and reward manipulation methods. Novel MRI tools are also developed within the project, reflecting C. Büchel’s unique expertise in that area. The results of this trial can be expected to have important implications for somatic symptom and related disorders, which represent an under-researched and under-treated, but frequent and often chronic mental illness. Understanding (neuronal & behavioural) and manipulating expectations and locus of control is also relevant for the treatment other mental disorders, which is why this project can be expected to have a strong impact on the entire field.
https://cordis.europa.eu/project/id/883892
DFG Emmy-Nöther Group – Fear Profiles. This project aims at the identification and characterization of individual trajectories in fear and anxiety. This project is an independent junior research group lead by T. Lonsdorf. Latent growth curve mixture modelling approaches are used to characterize profiles of fear/ anxiety trajectories, and the neuronal bases of these distinct profiles are identified, with the aim to develop individually-tailored, mechanism-based intervention and prevention programmes.
https://gepris.dfg.de/gepris/projekt/405663121?language=en
IMBALANCE: This project, funded by BMBF and lead by T. Donner is aiming at the identification of the development and validation of a novel, valid biomarker assay for schizophrenia, derived from recently identified pathophysiological brain mechanisms: the balance between excitatory and inhibitory neocortical neurons (E/I imbalance). Computational modelling is applied to evaluate the suitability of candidate markers, along with a multimethods approach (selective pharmacological stimulation, EEG/MEG, human and mouse trials). Suitability of established biomarkers will be validated with patient data.
https://www.gesundheitsforschung-bmbf.de/de/imbalance-ein-neuro-computationa- ler-biomarker-assay-fur-schizophrenie-basierend-auf-e-i-11444.php
CRC TRR 58 – Fear, Anxiety, Anxiety Disorders. The Collaborative Research Centre Transregio 58 consists of 28 clinical and basic scientists in Münster, Hamburg, Mainz, and Würzburg, and is strongly translation-oriented. The project includes 18 projects and a superordinate Z-project, covering the range from genetic foundations of fear and anxiety, epigenetic factors both concerning deve- lopmental and reversible aspects of conditioned and generalized fear, neurobiological mechanisms, and stress as well as life-history aspects. From the MH-TRN, T. Lonsdorf and C. Büchel are PIs in SFB TRR 58.
https://www.medizin.uni-muenster.de/sfbtrr58/the-project.html
CRC 936 – Multi-site Communication in the Brain. The Collaborative Research Centre includes 21 scientists from theoretical and clinical departments at the UKE and the University of Hamburg, as well as 4 scientists from the Universities of Lübeck, Giessen, and Berlin. From the MHTRN, of the 9 basic science PIs, 6 are PIs in the SFB 936 (C. Büchel, T. Donner, J. Gallinat, S. Kühn, A. Engel, B. Röder). Main aims are the multilevel characterization of large-scale brain networks underlying cognition, the multisite brain interac- tions during development and learning, and aberrances in multi-site brain communication in mental disorders, such as schizophrenia.
https://www.sfb936.net/
IMAGEN. IMAGEN is a European project involving researchers and their institutions in London, Nottingham, Dublin, Paris, Berlin, Dresden, Hamburg and Mannheim. It aims at early characterization of factors in adolescents that constitute risks for later mental illness, focusing especially on emotion regulation/ processing, reward sensitivity, and impulsivity. Structural and functional, as well as genetic and psychometric (psychological and survey) data is gathered across multiple time points (14, 16, 19, 22 years of age), in order to identify those risk factors and associated trajectories concerning the onset of mental illness. C. Büchel is lead investigator for IMAGEN Hamburg, J. Gallinat is a principal investigator. Together, they have contributed to this project and analyzed data for many years.
https://imagen-europe.com/
