Research Groups

Welcome to our research site!

Our research philosophy revolves around the idea that psychiatry in fact is a clinical neuroscience, meaning that neuroscientific progress will help to dissect the currently heterogeneous mass of psychiatric disorder into district entities which will then also open the avenue to develop tailored treatments – be them psychotherapeutic, pharmacological, neurostimulatory or whatever: the right therapy for the right patient at the right time. To do so, we will need to integrate psychotherapy, neurostimulation and medication to selectively target precisely defined functional systems (biochemical pathways using drugs, anatomical systems using neurostimulation, neural systems using psychotherapy).

Special emphasis is paid on the development of mental disorders along the life span (developmental psychiatry), with a focus on mood disorders and ADHD. Also schizophrenia and neurodegenerative disorders are studied in this context. Our methods are manifold and follow the logic of translational / experimental medicine, where results from basic studies are ideally rapidly translated to the bedside. To this end we make use of a plethora of methods: from basic molecular biology and genetics to neurobiology and animal models to neurophysiology and neuroimaging. You can find more details about our working groups using the menu on the left side.

Apart from many international and national collaborations, we are tightly intertwined with many local research activities within the University Hospital, the Goethe University and the ICNF / rmn². The Brain Imaging Center (BIC), the Departments of Neurology and Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, the NeuroScienceCenter (with neurophysiology and neuroanatomy), and the Ernst-Strüngmann-Institute (ESI) form the ”neuropsych” campus ensuring top notch interdisciplinary research. Furher, we collaborate with many other local neuroscience institutes such as the Max-Planck-Institute for Brain Research, the Department of Psychology, and many others.

If you are interesting in collaborations or joining one of the work groups, do not hesitate to get in touch!

Yours sincerely, Andreas Reif (Chair)